Seeing what we want to see.

• Position: FREE&CLEAR - Economic conditions

I was thinking about state politics while mowing my lawn. Hey, don't look at me like that--we all cope with the tedium of yardwork in different ways. Perhaps you listen to music or sports-talk radio. I listen to recordings of college lectures and argue with myself about political philosophy and economic theory. Anyway, looking across the driveway at my neighbor's manicured carpet of dark fescue and comparing it with my pitiful spread of weeds and wire grass got me thinking about the current political moment. As North Carolina and the nation grapple with problems such as lackluster economic growth and mediocre educational outcomes, many people look across borders to find models for reform.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

But in politics, the grass is not always greener on the other side. Politicians and activists tend to see other models in whatever way is most convenient for their arguments. For example, many liberal advocates of single-payer, government-run health insurance cite Canada as a model, contending that it ensures universal access to care while costing less than the U.S. approach. Conservatives point out the problems with the Canadian system--such as the extent to which patients who can afford it head south of the border for specialty care--and argue against the relevance of the Canadian model for America.

When it comes to economics, however, the roles reverse. Conservatives who advocate pro-growth fiscal and regulatory policies point to Canada as a model. Its combined marginal tax rates on business and investment, for example, are far lower than those in the United States, and Canada ranks higher on the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, in part because of prudent budgeting and fewer regulations.

So conservatives want America to be more like Canada on economic policy, while liberals want America to be more like Canada on health policy. Their gaze over the metaphorical fence is colored by what they want to see, not what is actually there.

Here's another place people of varying political stripes tend to see, well, stripes of varying colors: the Netherlands. Libertarians praise the country for its relatively lax social regulations on drugs and prostitution. Liberals admiringly observe that it provides universal health care (via a two-tiered system of government insurance and private supplemental plans) and imposes strict gun control. Conservatives favorably note that the education system has had...