Voice For Liberty

Author: Bob Weeks

  • Nashville Shows Need for Kansas Property Tax Reform

    Using the small town of Nashville, Kansas, a KWCH Television news story shows why property tax reform is needed in Kansas.

    Specifically, reform of the appraisal process is required. In Nashville, just by cleaning up his property, a homeowner’s property taxes doubled. Proposition K would, in part, introduce predictable growth in appraisals, which would eliminate situations like this in Nashville.

    The KWCH news story by reporter Kim Wilhelm, which includes video, is Prop K Could Change Your Property Taxes.

    For more information on Proposition K, see these links:

    Proposition K Will Make Property Taxes Fairer and More Predictable, a news release at the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy.
    House committee hears call for property tax overhaul today, a news story at Kansas Liberty.

  • Green Jobs: Fact or Fiction

    One of the seemingly compelling arguments made by proponents of green energy is that the shift to different types of energy production would create many jobs and be good for the economy. This argument is particularly appealing right now, as job losses are stacking up.

    The article Green Jobs: Fact or Fiction examines four studies that promote green jobs as a way to benefit the economy. All have problems, falling into a few general categories:

    1. Mistaking a labor-intensive energy sector as the goal, rather than efficient energy provision.
    “It is a sign of increased efficiency if more energy can be produced and delivered with fewer workers, because this expands the overall output potential of the economy. Yet the green jobs studies that we analyze in this report reach the opposite conclusion, and favor energy sources that require more workers to yield a given amount of energy.”

    2. Counting job creation but ignoring job destruction.
    “Even if job creation per se is the goal, the studies fail to properly account for the job destruction that their recommendations would entail.”

    3. Double counting of jobs and overly simplistic treatment of the labor market.
    “The thinking is that the workers going into the new green jobs will simply reduce the unemployment rate, rather than siphoning talented people away from other industries.”

    4. Ignoring the role of the private sector.
    “No consideration appears to have been given to the fact that government cannot direct the labor and capital markets more efficiently than market wage and interest rates.”

  • The True Danger of the Current Economic Crisis

    Thomas Sowell explains that the true danger we face is not recession or even a depression, but the permanent expansion of government that lingers forever:

    No matter how many times President Barack Obama tells us that these “extraordinary times” call for “swift action,” the kind of economic policies he is promoting take effect very slowly, no matter how quickly the legislation is rushed through Congress. It is the old Army game of hurry up and wait.

    If the Beltway politicians aren’t really trying to solve this crisis as quickly as they could, what are they trying to do?

    One important clue may be a recent statement by President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, that “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

    This is the kind of cynical revelation that sometimes slips out, despite all the political pieties and spin. Crises have long been seen as great opportunities to expand the federal government’s power while the people are too scared to object and before any opposition can get organized.

    Sowell’s column is What Are They Buying?

  • Economic Stimulus: Timing is Everything

    When I took macroeconomics in college way back in the 70’s, people actually believed in Keynesian economic theory. It was in the textbooks. One of the problems with government attempting to stimulate the economy the Keynesian way is the matter of timing. By the time we’re sure we’re in a recession, Congress passes laws, and the money is spent, the economy may be already out of the recession. Then, all the stimulus of the spending takes effect, the economy becomes overheated, and inflation becomes a problem. So goes the theory, anyway. This is only one of the problems inherent in the government trying to manage the economy. A Wall Street Journal column explains:

    According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, a mere $26 billion of the House stimulus bill’s $355 billion in new spending would actually be spent in the current fiscal year, and just $110 billion would be spent by the end of 2010. This is highly embarrassing given that Congress’s justification for passing this bill so urgently is to help the economy right now, if not sooner.

    The stimulus bill is also a time machine in the sense that it’s based on an old, and largely discredited, economic theory. As Harvard economist Robert Barro pointed out on these pages last Thursday, the “stimulus” claim is based on something called the Keynesian “multiplier,” which is that each $1 of spending the government “injects” into the economy yields 1.5 times that in greater output. There’s little evidence to support this theory, but you have to admire its beauty because it assumes the government can create wealth out of thin air. If it were true, the government should spend $10 trillion and we’d all live in paradise.

    See The Stimulus Time Machine, January 26, 2009 Wall Street Journal

  • Term Limits in Wichita

    In Wichita, city council members and the mayor are limited to serving two four-year terms. Last February the Wichita Eagle reported that some council members were considering a measure to end term limits. The main reason for wanting to do away with term limits is the perception that time and experience are required in order to become an effective council member. But under term limits, the tenure of experienced council members is artificially cut short. The public, therefore, doesn’t get the benefit of these experienced council members.

    At a recent Wichita Pachyderm Club meeting, council member Paul Gray spoke. I asked him about term limits — he has about two more years to serve before his limit expires — and he expressed opposition to term limits as he did last year.

    “I think it’s an arbitrary barrier that puts more power in the hands of bureaucracy and staff than it does in elected representatives,” he said. He added there’s not enough support on the city council to pass a resolution that would then appear on a ballot that citizens would vote on.

    Kansas Senator Kansas Senator Chris Steineger, Democrat from Kansas City, expressed similar concerns to me. He said it takes experience to become a good legislator. With high turnover in the Kansas legislature, he said we don’t make the best decisions that we could make.

    Underlying these arguments is the assumption that we need experienced, effective legislators, county commission members, city council members, and school board members. If your goal is to expand the power and influence of government, maybe so. But if you seek to limit the power of government and tip the balance back towards individual liberty, experienced and powerful elected representatives are not what we need.

    The argument that we need experienced elected officials to provide a counter to powerful staff members and bureaucrats can be eliminated by, well, eliminating powerful staff and bureaucrats. If we seek a limited government, we need to reduce the number and power of these. In the meantime, elected representatives should pass laws that give more power to them, rather than to staff and bureaucrats.

    There is one argument against term limits that is persuasive to me. If we view voting as an act of speech, then term limits are a limitation on that speech. I asked a noted term limits opponent at the national level about this, and he’d never heard that argument before. So it’s novel, and perhaps I’m not thinking though this argument thoroughly.

    I do know, however, that if the power and intrusiveness of government were limited, it wouldn’t matter as much who holds office.

    For more information on term limits, see these resources:
    U.S. Term Limits
    Citizens for Term Limits
    Real term Limits: Now More Than Ever
    A Brief History of Term Limits

  • American Majority Candidate Training in Kansas

    Recently I attended a campaign training event produced by American Majority. This event was targeted to candidates and their supporters for city council and school board offices.

    Dennis Wilson is the Kansas Board Chairman of American Majority. He just completed service as a member of the Kansas Senate. Addressing the audience, he said that individual freedom — through limited government and the free market — is what is important. Government protects and secures our natural rights. Quoting Frederic Bastiat, he said “Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

    Wilson promoted the benefit of having private industry do things rather than the government. Free markets are a great concern today, he said. We may now actually be closer to a socialist country than we’ve ever been, when the government is involved with fifty percent of our economy. He quoted Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” We cannot continue on this path of increasing spending without accountability at the local level.

    American Majority, he said, believes in individual freedom and market freedom, and will take this message to candidates, activists, and campuses.

    American Majority will have an activist training session in Wichita on Saturday February 28. Online registration will be available soon.

  • Redesigning Kansas County Government: Follow-up

    Last week I reported on a talk that Kansas Senator Kansas Senator Chris Steineger, Democrat from Kansas City, delivered to some 300 citizens at Americans For Prosperity‘s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita.

    One of the things Steineger believes is that Kansas has too many counties, a legacy from the days of travel to the county seat by horseback. So I got to thinking about the consolidation of two counties into one and some of the issues that would be involved.

    In a follow-up call with the senator, he mentioned that even ten to 12 counties could join together to form one new county. How would we decide how to form these new counties? Where would the county seat be? Steineger’s answer is to form new counties based around economic development engines.

    He also said that several factors are coming into play that make the redesign of the county map in Kansas more likely: First, the state is eliminating state revenue sharing with counties. Second, the state is eliminating legislative barriers to consolidation.

    There’s no central place in the legislature focused on county redesign in Kansas, Steineger added. If citizens are interested in seeing this idea proceed, they should talk to their house or senate member.

    As the senator said in his talk to the AFP summit, there is a window of time when the legislature and the people of Kansas are more receptive to these types of reform. That is during times of stress like we are experiencing now. Once times are better, people will be less responsive.

  • Didn’t Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation free your ancestors?

    The hypocrisy of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation came in for heavy criticism. His Secretary of State William Seward said, “We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.” … President Obama can be forgiven for celebrating the hypocrisy of Abraham Lincoln because the victors of wars write their history and glorify the winners. The recognition that slavery is a despicable institution does not require hero worship of a president who made the largest contribution to the unraveling of our Constitution.

    Walter E. Williams‘ column President Obama’s Inauguration holds some interesting observations of Abraham Lincoln and his legacy. It’s not what is taught in most school textbooks.

  • Bob Hanson of Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission Speaks to Sedgwick County Commissioners

    At the January 21, 2009 meeting of the Board of Sedgwick County Commissioners, Bob Hanson, President/CEO of the Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission addressed the commission.

    We have to step back and wonder why it’s necessary to occupy the time of the Sedgwick County Commissioners and the people of the county who pay attention to these meetings just so that Mr. Hanson can recite the history of his organization.

    Here’s something that Hanson said to the commissioners:

    “As you are well aware, we are certainly proud of what’s taken place in the development of the Intrust Bank arena. A big congratulations to all of you, past commissioners, and certainly the staff of Sedgwick county for the leadership you have provided for our community in development of this jewel and huge community project. I know you are aware of the important role the Sports Commission and all of our members played in bringing the arena campaign to fruition.”

    I wonder if Hanson is aware that several of the commission members who supported the downtown arena were defeated in their bids for re-election. Their support of the arena played a role in that.

    Further, the makeup of the current commission would hardly be favorable to passage of a project like the arena. For Hanson to thank the current members for their support of the arena is laughable.

    Mr. Hanson and his organization have agitated for government funding of projects that benefit their special interests. The most notable of these is the downtown Wichita arena. That arena is likely to turn out to be a huge ongoing liability for the taxpayers of Sedgwick County. But the GWASC nibbles at the taxpayer in little ways, too. This year Sedgwick County will contribute $5,000 to the GWASC, just as it has in years past.

    Tomorrow’s agenda for the Wichita City Council workshop contains an item titled “Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission 2008 Annual Report.” This will likely be a chance for city council members to be treated to the same presentation the county commissioners sat through. Looking at the city’s budget documents it isn’t possible to tell whether the city contributes to the GWASC. The “search” feature on the city’s website isn’t helpful, either. This lack of transparency is something we need to address.

    But I think it’s safe to assume that Mr. Hanson and his organization will be asking the Wichita city council for a contribution. His history of asking taxpayers to support his pet projects — rent seeking is the technical term — is known.