During one of the presidential debates, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney said his test for whether a federal program should be continued is whether it was worth funding with money borrowed from China. Whether Romney wins the presidency or President Obama is reelected, the next Administration will face some hard choices about what programs are really worth funding.
If the State Department is forced to start watching its pennies, I'm not sure its Cultural Heritage Center could really justify its worth compared to other worthy State Department programs.
The Center caters exclusively to a small group of academics and foreign cultural heritage bureaucrats. The money it hands out to foreign countries to fund archaeological projects could probably be better spent on things like supplies of clean water or fighting aids.
Moreover, the actual public support for its program to restrict the import of cultural goods is quite slim. And the net result of its activities has simply been to give foreign collectors and cultural goods dealers a competitive advantage. While Americans face stifling red tape requirements that preclude entry of thousands upon thousands of cultural artifacts, foreign collectors and dealers face no such hurdles and go about their business as usual.
Perhaps, the best thing to do would be to eliminate the Cultural Heritage Center and transfer CPAC and the decision making regarding import restrictions to the Department of Commerce. Commerce is well suited for handling trade issues and would likely not take the anti-business stance that seems ingrained in the State Department bureaucracy.
Will this happen anytime soon? No, but hopefully federal budget makers will start asking some hard questions about exactly what the Cultural Heritage Center does for the American taxpayer. Certainly, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently suggested that it might be time for Congress and the Executive Branch to pay more attention to what the Cultural Heritage Center is doing.
Showing posts with label Obama Administration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama Administration. Show all posts
The Obama Record for Collectors: Not a Good One
President Obama's reelection efforts will not rise or fall on his Administration's position on ancient coin collecting, but his record on cultural patrimony issues is worth recounting because of the stark contrast between the Administration's rhetoric and the dismal reality of its actions.
Transparency- The rhetoric: President Obama promised that his Administration would be the most transparent in history. The reality: The Obama State Department has refused to release the most basic information about its decision making on import restrictions on cultural goods. Moreover, the Administration has started closing interim reviews of MOUs. This contrasts with the practice of the Bush Administration, which allowed the public to comment at CPAC meetings whether Italy and Cyprus had met their own obligations under MOU's. For now at least, the public can still comment before MOU's are renewed.
Overregulation of Small Business: The rhetoric: The President claims to be against overregulating small business. The reality: The Obama Administration has extended difficult to comply with import restrictions to Greek and Roman coins from Italy and Greece (the heart of the ancient coin market), and will likely add Bulgarian coins to the list soon as well. In so doing, the Administration has ignored multiple requests for meetings to discuss compliance issues from different coin groups, has offered only condescending responses to bipartisan Congressional inquiries (including one coordinated from the office of Republican VP Candidate Congressman Ryan), and has packed CPAC with academics with little sympathy for such concerns.
China: The rhetoric: The President claims he will be tough on Chinese "cheating." The reality: The Obama State Department has closed a CPAC meeting to discuss the interim review of the Chinese MOU. CPAC should be discussing how import restrictions have done little but empower Chinese auction houses linked to the country's ruling elite, but the State Department will instead likely take advantage of this secrecy to spoon feed CPAC a wildly different version of whether import restrictions have been successful.
Transparency- The rhetoric: President Obama promised that his Administration would be the most transparent in history. The reality: The Obama State Department has refused to release the most basic information about its decision making on import restrictions on cultural goods. Moreover, the Administration has started closing interim reviews of MOUs. This contrasts with the practice of the Bush Administration, which allowed the public to comment at CPAC meetings whether Italy and Cyprus had met their own obligations under MOU's. For now at least, the public can still comment before MOU's are renewed.
Overregulation of Small Business: The rhetoric: The President claims to be against overregulating small business. The reality: The Obama Administration has extended difficult to comply with import restrictions to Greek and Roman coins from Italy and Greece (the heart of the ancient coin market), and will likely add Bulgarian coins to the list soon as well. In so doing, the Administration has ignored multiple requests for meetings to discuss compliance issues from different coin groups, has offered only condescending responses to bipartisan Congressional inquiries (including one coordinated from the office of Republican VP Candidate Congressman Ryan), and has packed CPAC with academics with little sympathy for such concerns.
China: The rhetoric: The President claims he will be tough on Chinese "cheating." The reality: The Obama State Department has closed a CPAC meeting to discuss the interim review of the Chinese MOU. CPAC should be discussing how import restrictions have done little but empower Chinese auction houses linked to the country's ruling elite, but the State Department will instead likely take advantage of this secrecy to spoon feed CPAC a wildly different version of whether import restrictions have been successful.
Help David Take on Goliath
Obviously, I agree with this World Coin News editorial: http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=24861
I would also note if any of the political appointees in the Obama State Department or US Customs actually studied the issues, they might also question how their agency's actions comport with President Obama's promises to curb over regulation, particularly when it harms small businesses. Are grossly overbroad import restrictions doing anything other than killing off small businesses and discriminating against American collectors compared to their European and Chinese counterparts?
Dave Harper believes ACCG is David, the underdog, in this battle against the bureaucratic Goliath. The latest political news is that President Obama apparently thinks he is an underdog too. Perhaps, that will encourage his political appointees to take a serious and independent look at what the bureaucracy has wrought. At a minimum, Harper's editorial should put world coin collectors on notice-- it's ancient coins today, early modern coins tomorrow.
I would also note if any of the political appointees in the Obama State Department or US Customs actually studied the issues, they might also question how their agency's actions comport with President Obama's promises to curb over regulation, particularly when it harms small businesses. Are grossly overbroad import restrictions doing anything other than killing off small businesses and discriminating against American collectors compared to their European and Chinese counterparts?
Dave Harper believes ACCG is David, the underdog, in this battle against the bureaucratic Goliath. The latest political news is that President Obama apparently thinks he is an underdog too. Perhaps, that will encourage his political appointees to take a serious and independent look at what the bureaucracy has wrought. At a minimum, Harper's editorial should put world coin collectors on notice-- it's ancient coins today, early modern coins tomorrow.
Small Business Saturday Promotion Needs to Be Extended to Obama CPAC
American Express is running advertisements in the United States promoting "Small Business Saturday." The campaign underscores the importance of small business to the American economy, something that one also often hears from politicians of both political parties as well.
Such a promotion also needs to be run for the Obama CPAC, the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and its Cultural Heritage Center. President Obama may claim that he sympathizes with small business, but no such sympathy was on display at CPAC's recent meeting on a proposed MOU with Bulgaria.
Instead, Jane Levine, a former prosecutor for the FBI's Art Crime team who now runs Sotheby's compliance department and who is an Obama CPAC pick for a trade slot on CPAC, seemed to suggest that it should be "easy" for the small businesses of the numismatic trade to comply with the certification requirements for legal import of items on the designated list under the CPIA.
Really? As I explained to Ms. Levine, the small businesses of the numismatic trade (most of which are sole proprietorships) really don't have the resources of a Sotheby's to cope with all the red tape involved (even assuming that European sources would be willing to provide the required certifications for EACH restricted coin that is imported). And as I also noted, Customs has been known to go well beyond the documentation requirements of the CPIA and only allow restricted items entry if they are pictured in a catalogue predating any import restrictions. This of course forecloses the import of virtually every ancient coin type on the designated list, as perhaps only one in every 10,000 or so coins actually is significant enough to be catalogued in this manner.
Although one hopes there is enough common sense left somewhere in the State Department or Customs to realize that the CPIA's restrictions were never meant to apply to such numerous and inexpensive artifacts like most ancient coins, one suspects that this really won't matter to a group of AIA members or supporters that hold that that the only legitimate exchange of cultural artifacts is a long term loan from a source country museum to a like institution in the United States.
Hopefully, someone in the Obama White House political operation will realize there is a problem at CPAC and the State Department that is threatening to turn ancient coin collectors (most of whom are likely Democrats) against President Obama's reelection bid. Can the President's appointees really afford to alienate at least 50,000 serious ancient coin collectors and the hundreds of small businesses of the numismatic trade, particularly when the number of public comments recorded in support of MOU's is so infinitesimal?
Such a promotion also needs to be run for the Obama CPAC, the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and its Cultural Heritage Center. President Obama may claim that he sympathizes with small business, but no such sympathy was on display at CPAC's recent meeting on a proposed MOU with Bulgaria.
Instead, Jane Levine, a former prosecutor for the FBI's Art Crime team who now runs Sotheby's compliance department and who is an Obama CPAC pick for a trade slot on CPAC, seemed to suggest that it should be "easy" for the small businesses of the numismatic trade to comply with the certification requirements for legal import of items on the designated list under the CPIA.
Really? As I explained to Ms. Levine, the small businesses of the numismatic trade (most of which are sole proprietorships) really don't have the resources of a Sotheby's to cope with all the red tape involved (even assuming that European sources would be willing to provide the required certifications for EACH restricted coin that is imported). And as I also noted, Customs has been known to go well beyond the documentation requirements of the CPIA and only allow restricted items entry if they are pictured in a catalogue predating any import restrictions. This of course forecloses the import of virtually every ancient coin type on the designated list, as perhaps only one in every 10,000 or so coins actually is significant enough to be catalogued in this manner.
Although one hopes there is enough common sense left somewhere in the State Department or Customs to realize that the CPIA's restrictions were never meant to apply to such numerous and inexpensive artifacts like most ancient coins, one suspects that this really won't matter to a group of AIA members or supporters that hold that that the only legitimate exchange of cultural artifacts is a long term loan from a source country museum to a like institution in the United States.
Hopefully, someone in the Obama White House political operation will realize there is a problem at CPAC and the State Department that is threatening to turn ancient coin collectors (most of whom are likely Democrats) against President Obama's reelection bid. Can the President's appointees really afford to alienate at least 50,000 serious ancient coin collectors and the hundreds of small businesses of the numismatic trade, particularly when the number of public comments recorded in support of MOU's is so infinitesimal?
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