The Wall Street Journal - 19.08.2019

A18| Monday, August 19, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Some College Programs Pay Off Handsomely

Your front-page article (“College

Pays Off, But Not for All,” Page One,

Aug. 10) cites several important rea-

sons some students are no longer

seeing college as a worthwhile in-

vestment. But it also notes a funda-

mental truth: Americans with a col-

lege degree earn far more than those

with only a high-school diploma. Stu-

dents looking for the best return on

their college education should focus

on the results an institution delivers.

At Pace University, we focus on a

strong practical education grounded

in the liberal arts. Our students have

real-world opportunities to practice

the things they’re learning about in

classrooms, and our robust career

services office ensures they find

great first jobs that start them on

great careers. We’re proof that the

right college does pay off.

MARVINKRISLOV

President, Pace University

New York

I agree with the article’s basic

premise but feel it leaves off one im-

portant aspect—skills. Research by

my colleagues and me at Educational

Testing Service, where I direct the

Center for Global Assessment, shows

that a significant number of adults

with a bachelor’s degree or higher

have poor literacy and numeracy

skills. These adults are more likely to

be mal-employed and are less likely

to benefit from the economic returns

from a college degree. Our analysis is

based on an international compara-

tive study of adults known as the

Programme for the International As-

sessment of Adult Competencies. One

contributing factor has been the

growing divergence between educa-

tional attainment and distribution of

essential skills such as literacy and

numeracy.

IRWINS.KIRSCH

Princeton, N.J.

Education is not binary; one isn’t

limited to a choice between college

and only a high-school education or

less. People in my family, people in

communities where I’ve lived, and

students with whom I’ve worked or

coached demonstrate consistently

that having a trade—via trade school

and/or apprenticeship—can provide

earnings and benefits worth at least

as much money, and in most cases

far more, even over time, than those

who went to college and even gradu-

ate school. They have their own

homes, excellent skills that they can

take anywhere and are needed every-

where, and little or no student debt.

NECHAMAHGOLDFARB

Kingston, Pa.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters intended for publication should

be addressed to: The Editor, 1211 Avenue

of the Americas, New York, NY 10036,

or emailed to [email protected]. Please

include your city and state. All letters

are subject to editing, and unpublished

letters can be neither acknowledged nor

returned.

“I understand they’re protesting

the elimination of the

Bureau of Band Management.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

It’s Past Time to Rethink Unrwa’s Mandate

The United Nations Relief and

Works Agency for Palestine Refugees

in the Near East (Unrwa) has a

vested interest in maintaining the

Palestinian status quo. It is clear

from Alex Joffe’s and Asaf

Romirowsky’s “The U.N. Agency for

Palestinians Is Even Worse Than You

Imagine” (op-ed, Aug. 7) that the ex-

ecutives have a sweet deal, using

U.N. funds to travel first class, dine

first class and enjoy international

status.

The Palestinian “refugee problem”

was created by the Arab govern-

ments decades ago, when they told

the inhabitants of the region to flee

from the Jews when Israel was

founded, for the purpose of using

them as pawns in the international

game of power and control. If the

Unrwa wants to help the “refugees,”

it will secure peace with Israel. Is-

rael isn’t going away. The Unrwa is

positioned to profit from the misery

of the Palestinians. Once again the

Palestinians suffer. Peace isn’t the

goal.

SUSANFOREMAN

Sarasota, Fla.

The proper function of a refugee

aid agency is to assist refugees in

settling into productive lives wher-

ever they reside. By this metric

alone, the Unrwa is a miserable fail-

ure in its work with Palestinians.

This agency has promoted the re-

tention of refugee status for the de-

scendants of the Palestinian Arabs

who fled their homes at Israel’s re-

birth. Only about 20,000 to 30,

of these original refugees remain

alive.

Furthermore the Unrwa is a cess-

pool of anti-Semitism and terrorism.

From pictures of Hitler on the walls

of Unrwa schools, to terrorist rock-

ets being concealed in Unrwa school-

yards, and to Unrwa school curricula

promoting anti-Semitism and endless

war with Israel, the Unrwa is a can-

cer infecting and destroying any

prospects of peace between Israelis

and Palestinians. Like any other can-

cer, the Unrwa needs to be excised.

Those Palestinians who reside in

surrounding Arab countries should

be settled there, just as Jewish de-

scendants of Jewish refugees from

Arab countries are settled in Israel.

Any United Nations agency granting

them aid should be held to strict

standards of stellar ethical and fi-

nancial competence, and should be

required to promote the peace that

the international community claims

to desire.

DANIELH.TRIGOBOFF

Williamsville, N.Y.

Pepper ...

And Salt

Affirmative Consent? Maybe Body Cameras

KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor cau-

tion the American Bar Association’s

House of Delegates to reject “affirma-

tive-consent language proposed by ac-

tivists” in several assault cases (“Will

the ABA Reject Due Process?,” op-ed,

Aug. 12). This raises the question of

how can the rights of the accuser be

recognized today in the #MeToo he

said-she said litigious world of the

moment where hard and incontro-

vertible evidence are often scarce or

nonexistent.

Perhaps the answer lies not in the

realm of due-process law, but rather

in that of contract law. An offer is

made by one party and accepted by

the other (mutual consent). Some-

thing of value must be exchanged. The

contract must be in writing, and the

offer and contract must include an ex-

piration time whether it’s five min-

utes, an evening, a month, or in the

case of marriage hopefully a lifetime.

Where there is a will and a fee

there is assuredly a way. The language

of the mutual consent contract must

be carefully considered and con-

structed as governed by state com-

mon law. The contracts should be

small enough to fit in a wallet or

small evening purse. Fine print in the

contracts must be deemed legible

even in the back seat of a dimly-lit

limousine.

ROBERTMAXWELL

Fort Myers, Fla.

As the American Bar Association

wrestles with the complexities of how

to determine if someone has affirma-

tively consented to sexual relations,

we should note that many years ago

people came up with a clever way of

determining if consent had been

given. It involved walking down an

aisle and saying “I do” in the presence

of witnesses.

More recent, alternative mecha-

nisms for establishing affirmative

consent haven't achieved that level of

definitive clarity.

CADMUSHICKS

Wheaton, Ill.

After vigorous debate the Resolu-

tion didn’t pass, but was killed by an

overwhelming vote to table (256 to

165). Despite inferences to the con-

trary, the lawyers in the ABA’s House

of Delegates understand the concept

of due process.

FREDW.SUGGSJR.

Greenville, S.C.

Wrongly Abusing Racial

Sensitivity as a Weapon

Regarding Christian Schneider’s

“‘Bias Teams’ Welcome the Class of

1984” (op-ed, Aug. 6): If ridicule can

end the silliness of “bias reporting”

at universities, let’s pour on the ridi-

cule. I have a son in his 50s who

teaches math at a large state univer-

sity. He was accused of insulting

Asian students. What did he say?

“I’m writing large for aging eyes.”

Some poor, anonymous student

needed a hearing aid.

IRENEEGGERS

Wheat Ridge, Colo.

The Right’s Left Turn on Drug Prices

R

epublicans are worried about their re-
election prospects in 2020, and one re-
sult is a frenzy to “do something” on
high drug prices. Yet two of
the latest ideas are standbys
of the left: foreign importa-
tion and pricing penalties,
which are more about politics
than results for patients.
The Trump Administration
says it intends to explore ways “to allow safe
importation of certain prescription drugs to
lower prices and reduce out of pocket costs for
American patients,” as Health and Human Ser-
vices said in a press release.
This idea polls well because Americans are
annoyed that drugs are cheaper in Canada,
which controls prices. Bernie Sanders recently
joined a caravan of Americans crossing the
northern border to buy insulin. Florida has pro-
posed importing prescription drugs from Can-
ada, which requires federal signoff, and HHS
says it may approve such projects.
One problem: Canada. The country is disin-
clined to siphon off its drug supply to American
patients. By one analysis, if merely 20% of U.S.
prescriptions were filled in Canada, the coun-
try’s drug supply would be exhausted in less
than 200 days. Reuters last month obtained
documents showing the Canadian government
discussing how to stop U.S. importation that
could create shortages.
Savings would be illusory in any case. HHS
excludes from importation: controlled sub-
stances, biological products, infused drugs, in-
travenously injected drugs, drugs inhaled dur-
ing surgery and certain others. As the American
Action Forum puts it: “In other words, every-
thing except the expensive treatments can be
imported.” Generics are already cheaper in
America.
The Trump Administration thinks it can find
ways to import drugs at no risk to the safety of
the drug supply, but maybe not. It isn’t obvious
how drugs labeled for sale in other countries
could conform with a 2013 “track and trace”
law, which is still being implemented. The pur-
pose was to prevent counterfeits and diversion
by tracking a packaged drug at every step of the
supply chain.
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Republican Sena-
tor Chuck Grassley’s Finance Committee has
passed bipartisan drug-pricing legislation with
provisions that include capping out-of-pocket
costs for seniors in Medicare Part D, the pre-
scription drug benefit. The point is to reorga-
nize the benefit’s structure in more rational
ways, and much of it is worthwhile.
Yet there are a couple ideas that deserve a
scrub before the bill reaches the floor. Nine Re-
publicans voted no in committee, which proba-
bly means the draft needs a rewrite to pass with

a majority of Republicans. The White House ap-

pears amenable to the current iteration but

shouldn’t be.

One problem involves Med-

icaid. Drug manufacturers by

law owe Medicaid steep re-

bates—for most patented

drugs, 23.1% of the average

manufactured price or one

prescribed by a formula,

whichever is higher. Drug makers pay an addi-

tional rebate if the drug’s price increases faster

than inflation. Total rebates are capped at 100%

of the average manufactured price.

Drugs for diabetes, oncology and other mala-

dies have hit this rebate maximum. Congress

is now proposing to increase rebate limits to

125% of the average manufactured price. In

other words, for Medicaid to cover a drug, some

companies would have to pay the government.

These losses would be recouped by higher

prices in commercial markets. A bigger rebate

won’t help Medicaid beneficiaries, whose out-

of-pocket drug costs are capped at a few dollars

for a prescription.

The Senate bill would also apply bad princi-

ples to Medicare. A provision championed by

Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon proposes add-

ing a penalty in Medicare for drugs whose

prices increase faster than inflation. That will

cause companies to launch drugs at higher

prices. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gott-

lieb has pointed out that companies could react

by treating inflation as the floor and ceiling of

politically acceptable price increases. In other

words, companies might increase prices every

year up to the point of inflation, regardless of

market realities.

These arguments haven’t stopped Congress

for two reasons: One is that the penalties raise

revenue that Congress can spend elsewhere.

The second is that both parties want drug com-

panies as a punching bag. Drug companies de-

serve criticism for abetting ObamaCare and

some pricing excesses, but much of the recent

assault is demagoguery.

Neither importation nor penalties will have

a discernible effect on drug markets before pol-

iticians face voters in 2020. The importation

announcement is an “action plan,” meaning the

Administration hasn’t started making a rule.

The penalties in the Senate bill aren’t paid until

2021 and 2022.

The question is why Republicans are so

afraid to run on their good record on generic

drug approvals and drug-price increases, which

the White House rightly notes have fallen below

the pre-inauguration trend. The party should

promote more intense industry competition

and other initiatives as a down payment on

more progress. Instead Republicans risk abet-

ting more government control over health care.

The rate of increase is

falling even as the GOP

embraces bad ideas.

Endangered Species Overreach

P

erhaps you’ve been reading that the
Trump Administration wants to make
it easier to eliminate polar bears, spot-
ted owls and other species
from the face of the earth. As
ever in Donald Trump’s
Washington, the reality is dif-
ferent, so allow us to explain.
The uproar concerns a pro-
posed new rule to revise some
practices under the 1973 Endangered Species
Act. For all the praise liberals shower on that
law, it has achieved far less than advertised.
A 2018 report from the Heritage Foundation’s
Robert Gordon found that since 1973 the ESA
has helped to recover only 40 species, and
nearly half of those were mistakenly listed in
the first place.
Meanwhile, the law has become a legal
weapon to strip property rights and block mil-
lions of acres from private development. Con-
gress ought to rewrite the ESA but can’t break
a partisan impasse. So last week Interior Sec-
retary David Bernhardt tried to clarify regula-
tion under the law to prevent abuses.
The new rule restores Congress’s original
two-tiered approach, killing the Fish and
Wildlife Service’s “blanket rule” that treated
“endangered” and “threatened” species alike.
This will devote scarce government dollars—
and landowner attention—to the species most
at risk. It will also provide states more flexi-
bility to assist species that are struggling

though not seriously endangered.

The new rules clarify vague terms such as

“the foreseeable future” to mean only as far

as the government can “rea-

sonably determine” a danger

of extinction. This will make

it harder for activists to use

claims of vague future cli-

mate damage to declare many

more species endangered.

Another reform would limit the use of “crit-

ical habitat” designations that tie up tens of

millions of acres of U.S. land. The rules rein-

state a requirement that agencies first evalu-

ate acreage that contain the at-risk species be-

fore considering new, unoccupied areas.

The goal of all this is to return to a rules-

driven, scientific approach to species manage-

ment. States like California are threatening to

sue, but Interior will have a strong defense be-

cause its new rule adheres closely to the text

of the statute. Greens long ago commandeered

the species law via lawsuits and regulatory

overreach to put more land under bureau-

cratic control. This has alienated landowners

and misallocated scarce resources.

Many struggling species live on private

land, and the cooperation of owners is crucial

for recovery. Environmental laws and regula-

tions should encourage stewardship, rather

than penalize private partners. To the extent

the rules improve private-public cooperation,

the key deer and sage grouse will benefit.

A new rule won’t

put more fish and

wildlife at risk.

The Secular Busybodies Lose Again

S

upreme Court precedent travels fast.
Less than two months ago the Justices
ruled 7-2 that a 40-foot stone war memo-
rial, the Peace Cross in Bladensburg, Md., could
stay standing on public ground, despite its reli-
gious symbolism. Now a federal appeals court
has applied that logic to save a 75-year-old
county seal.
Lehigh County, Pa., which includes Allentown,
adopted its seal in 1944. It includes a Latin cross,
superimposed with an image of the county court-
house. Surrounding them are such secular sym-
bols as a heart, lamp, cow, grain silo, bison head,
and factory with billowing smokestacks. Two
years after this insignia was adopted, a county
commissioner said the cross signified “Christian-
ity and the God-fearing people which are the
foundation and backbone of our County.”
For 70 years the seal drew no complaints. But
in 2014 it caught the attention of the Freedom
From Religion Foundation, a busybody outfit that
wants to expunge religious symbols from public
life. The busybodies sued in 2016. A federal dis-

trict court reluctantly ruled the seal a violation

of the First Amendment’s ban on “establishment

of religion.” The judge said this outcome was con-

trary to the Founders’ intent but he was bound by

the Supreme Court’s 1971 ruling in Lemon v.

Kurtzman , which set up a multipronged test that

the Lehigh County seal failed.

The county appealed, but the case was put on

ice pending the Supreme Court’s ruling on the

Bladensburg cross. Two weeks ago that new

precedent was put to work by the Third Circuit

Court of Appeals, which said the Lemon test is

dead regarding “monuments, symbols, mottos,

displays, and ceremonies.”

Judge Thomas Hardiman, who was on Presi-

dent Trump’s short list for potential Supreme

Court picks, wrote the opinion. “The Latin cross

at issue here no doubt carries religious signifi-

cance,” he said. “But more than seven decades

after its adoption, the seal has become a famil-

iar, embedded feature of Lehigh County, attain-

ing a broader meaning than any one of its many

symbols.” The seal will stand.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

OPINION