Month: January 2007
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Market forces and teacher (mis)-education
In a system governed by market forces, teacher pay would be based on how well students learn, not how many superfluous degrees teachers accumulate
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Denouncing “Greed”
Today there are adults — including educated adults — who explain multimillion-dollar corporate executives’ salaries as being due to “greed.” Think about it: I could become so greedy that I wanted a fortune twice the size of Bill Gates’ — but this greed would not increase my income by one cent. …One of the reasons…
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The Value of the Businessman
An outstanding feature of the open market is the businessman, whose success or failure depends entirely on his ability to “focus on consumer needs” and so combine existing and potential factors of production to serve consumers most efficiently. The only constructive role government can play under the free market method of overcoming poverty is to…
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Spending and the true cost of government
(WICHITA) ? While lawmakers face a challenge to increase spending from many directions, they need to resist some of these pressures in order to control excessive government spending. In a policy brief released by the Flint Hills Center, ?The Virtue of a Self-Imposed Spending Cap for the Kansas Legislature,? Jonathan Williams documents the growth of…
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Record setting spending in Topeka
Now that the inconvenience of the 2006 election is behind us, the statehouse is getting back to what it does best: spending your tax dollars. Governor Sebelius’ latest state budget will set two new records for increased spending.
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Tax Growth Exceeds Income Growth
Several recent national fiscal surveys have pointed out that Kansas’ fiscal climate is not conducive to economic growth and we rank poorly with most of our neighboring states. There is tremendous tax uncertainty that is reflected in both the high level of property taxes in Kansas but the sizable property tax increases that occur through…
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Preserve farmland at what cost?
There are two areas in which I believe this writer is mistaken. First, if the transaction between developer and farmer was voluntary, each is better off than they were before. The developer (and by extension the people he hopes to sell houses to) valued the land more than the farmer did. Otherwise, why would the…
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Wichita downtown arena project’s failing finances
“The arena critics are being proven right,” said Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director of the Kansas Taxpayers Network, the oldest taxpayer organization in Kansas. “As the leading opponent of the 2004 downtown arena project in Wichita, it is becoming increasingly clear that this project is in major trouble.”