Voice For Liberty

Author: Bob Weeks

  • The decline In Kansas continues

    The Decline In Kansas Continues
    By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network
    January 17, 2006

    The relative decline of Kansas continues. This decline is vividly demonstrated when state and federal revenue growth is examined.

    Total federal revenues grew 13.9 percent last year to total $2.142 trillion dollars. This was an increase in federal revenues of $262 billion. This increase was almost twice the percentage rate of growth of Kansas state revenues that grew only 7.1 percent or $322 million in fiscal year 2005 that ended June 30, 2005. The federal revenue figures are for the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2005.

    The variance in this growth between Kansas and the other 49 states is important. This data is another confirmation of two recent reports that compared Kansas economic trends and reported distressing results. K.U. economics professor Art Hall and Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research’s (CEDBR) Janet Harrah have issued separate reports indicating that Kansas is lagging in a number of key economic indicators.

    Harrah’s 2005 report showed that income, population, and job growth were lagging in Kansas. This CEDBR study looked at all 50 states using six measurements for population growth, income, and jobs (see: www.wichita.edu/cedbr/). Kansas lags nationally and, even more distressing, was at or near the bottom in almost every category used in this 10 year survey from 1994-2003. Harrah’s study used the most recent 10 year period of federal data that was available.

    Professor Hall’s “Local Government and the Kansas Productivity Puzzle,” focused upon weak productivity in Kansas as well as the sizable growth in government that appears to be a factor in the poor level of productivity growth. Hall’s work was particularly distressing due to the fact that Kansas scored poorly among all plains regional states in most of the measurements he examined. So not only was Kansas lagging nationally, it was also lagging regionally (see: www.cae.business.ku.edu).

    Kansas is a laggard being pulled by the faster growing parts of the United States. This state has an economic growth problem that must be addressed due to the high taxes and resulting high level of government spending in this state. This is a reality that can certainly be ignored by state policy makers in Topeka. However, this is a reality that cannot be denied. Kansas is in economic trouble.

  • Attacking lobbyists wrong battle

    The economist Walter E. Williams has a column dated January 18, 2006, that places the current lobbying scandal in proper perspective.

    (We should caution Democrats against overindulging in schadenfreude [enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others] at this time. Democrats took money from Jack Abramoff too, and if there were more Democrats in positions of power, you can be sure there would be more money given to Democrats.)

    Professor Williams explains to us that given the “awesome growth of government control over business, property, employment and other areas of our lives” Washington politicians (and I would add state and local politicians too) are in the position to grant valuable favors. “The greater their power to grant favors, the greater the value of being able to influence Congress, and there’s no better influence than money.”

    Continuing: “The generic favor sought is to get Congress, under one ruse or another, to grant a privilege or right to one group of Americans that will be denied another group of Americans. A variant of this privilege is to get Congress to do something that would be criminal if done privately.”

    “Here’s just one among possibly thousands of examples. If Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) used goons and violence to stop people from buying sugar from Caribbean producers so that sugar prices would rise, making it easier for ADM to sell more of its corn syrup sweetener, they’d wind up in jail. If they line the coffers of congressmen, they can buy the same result without risking imprisonment. Congress simply does the dirty work for them by enacting sugar import quotas and tariffs. The two most powerful committees of Congress are the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance committees. These committees are in charge of granting tax favors. Their members are besieged with campaign contributions. Why? A tweak here and a tweak there in the tax code can mean millions of dollars.”

    What is the solution? I believe, and I know Dr. Williams does too, that we should reduce the power that government has over our lives. I believe we should rely more on free markets for solutions to problems, as these markets are composed of people voluntarily entering into transactions, rather than a coercive government forcing decisions on us based on who lobbied the hardest. Dr. Williams also relates this story and solution: “Nearly two decades ago, during dinner with the late Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek, I asked him if he had the power to write one law that would get government out of our lives, what would that law be? Professor Hayek replied he’d write a law that read: Whatever Congress does for one American it must do for all Americans.”

    Hayek also wrote in his book The Road to Serfdom: “As the coercive power of the state will alone decide who is to have what, the only power worth having will be a share in the exercise of this directing power.” We are well down this road, where government becomes more important than liberty and individuality. This is the battle we need to fight. Lobbying scandals are just a symptom and manifestation of the larger problem.

  • Who is more compassionate?

    Arthur C. Brooks, writing in the January 16, 2006 Wall Street Journal, debunks a stereotype about conservatives (those in favor of smaller government) being less compassionate and caring than those who are in favor of more government spending on social programs.

    Professor Brooks tells us that according to the General Social Survey in 2002, “the proponents of government spending are six percentage points less likely to give money to charity each year than the opponents, and a third less likely to give money away each month.” But that’s money. What about something else, like donating blood? “Once again, it is those opposed to government aid. These supposedly uncompassionate folks are 25% of the population, but donate more than 30% of the blood each year. Meanwhile, supporters of government spending to the poor are 28% of the population, but donate just 20% of the blood. If the whole population gave blood like opponents of social spending do, the blood supply would increase by more than a quarter. But if everyone in the population gave like government aid advocates, the supply would drop by about 30%.”

    Is this an example of “do as I say, not as I do?” Or are advocates of big government really more comfortable with government-run social program than private programs?

  • Book Review: Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families

    Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families

    Sheldon Richman
    The Future of Freedom Foundation, 1994

    Public schools are a great intrusion on liberty. Attendance is compulsory, as is paying for the public schools. Could the government devise a better way to expand its influence? “Despite the claim of moral neutrality, public education is linked to a particular set of values, namely, the values of the modern welfare, or social-service state. Those values include moral agnosticism (erroneously called tolerance), government activism, egalitarianism, ‘welfare rights’ to taxpayer largess, collectivism, and a watered-down version of socialism that looks much like the economic theory of the 1930s known as fascism.

    “Liberty is more precious than education,” said the Voluntaryist Richard Hamilton. “We love education, but there are things which we love better.” This is an important theme of this book, and one that seems lost on most members of the public, and most politicians too, for that matter. Because a person is opposed to the near-monopoly that government has on schools, it does not follow that the person doesn’t value education.

    Many people propose vouchers as a way to let parents send their children to private schools. But Richman warns against relying on vouchers as a solution to the problem of government control of education. It is likely, he says, that private schools will have to meet many of the standards that public schools do, thereby regulating private schools like public schools. Further, vouchers don’t change the fundamental problem in education, which is government financing of it.

    What should be done, Richman says, is to end all government involvement in education. End all taxes that pay for education. Repeal all compulsory attendance laws. Open education to the creativity of the market and entrepreneurs. We do not know what would happen if this were to take place. But that’s part of the magic of markets and competition: new ideas and products are invented that are beyond the imagination of the present.

  • Book Review: Education Myths: What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools and Why it Isn’t So

    Education Myths: What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools and Why it Isn’t So

    Jay P. Greene
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005

    Education policy, says Jay P. Greene, is dominated by myths. Myths aren’t lies. They’re intuitive, they seem to be true, and we want them to be true. There is probably some evidence supporting the myth. But if the myth isn’t true, if it isn’t accurate, and we make policy decisions based on the myth, we create disastrous results. As important and expensive as public education is, this means we need to examine myths and discard those that don’t truthfully describe the world.

    Subscribing to many of these myths benefits groups other than schoolchildren. These special interests that benefit from sustaining these myths are politically powerful. Those with the least power — the schoolchildren — don’t count for much at all.

    The myths:

    1. The Money Myth. “Schools perform poorly because they need more money.” The reality is that spending on education has been increasing, and increasing rapidly. In 1945 spending per student was $1,214. In 2001, it was $8,745. These figures are adjusted for inflation. In spite of this we are told every year that schools are dangerously underfunded, and if we don’t spend more and more, our children will not even be able to make change from the cash register at McDonald’s when the power goes out.

    2. The Special Ed Myth. “Special education programs burden public schools, hindering their academic performance.” This myth says that we must spend so much on education because more students are being classified as needing special education, and this education is very expensive. What really has happened, though, is that “the standard for what counts as a disability has been lowered.” There is also an incentive to classify students as learning disabled, as schools get more money for these students.

    3. The Myth of Helplessness. “Social problems like poverty cause students to fail; schools are helpless to prevent it.” But some schools are able to succeed despite disadvantaged students, so success is possible. School choice can help here, as it lets poor students escape schools that would otherwise take them for granted.

    4. The Class Size Myth. “Schools should reduce class sizes; small classes would produce bit improvements.” It seems intuitive that smaller classes are better for students. Educators rely on the Tennessee STAR project for proof. But there are many doubts about this project’s findings. It is interesting to note that the participants in this project knew they were being studied, and that if the project were a failure, the small class sizes would not continue. This introduced an element of competition. Also, reducing class size even by small steps is very expensive.

    5. The Certification Myth. “Certified or more experienced teachers are substantially more effective.” Good teachers are very important to learning, but there is a lot of research that fails to find that more education leads to teacher success. Curiously, most teachers are paid based on how much education they have, and the way to earn more is to get more education.

    6. The Teacher Pay Myth. “Teachers are badly underpaid.” But when considered in light of the number of hours worked, teachers are in fact paid quite well, more than accountants.

    7. The Myth of Decline. “Schools are performing much worse than they used to.” But most measures, such as NAEP tests and graduation rates, have remained constant over the years.

    8. The Graduation Myth. “Nearly all students graduate from high school.” Most states employ methods of counting that let them claim high graduation rates. Greene, however, uses different methods that are more reliable. With these methods, he estimates a nationwide graduation rate of 69 percent for the class of 2000. The National Center for Education Statistics figure is 86.5 percent.

    9. The College Access Myth. “Nonacademic barriers prevent a lot of minority students from attending college.” The evidence is that minority students are less likely to meet the qualifications to apply to college.

    10. The High Stakes Myth. “The results of high-stakes tests are not credible because they’re distorted by cheating and teaching to the test.” When properly implemented these tests are accurate measures of student performance.

    11. The Push-Out Myth. “Exit exams cause more students to drop out of high school.” Evidence says otherwise.

    12. The Accountably Buren Myth. “Accountability systems impose large financial burdens on schools.” Schools often exaggerate the costs of administering tests and record keeping. The costs are quite small compared to other reforms.

    13. The Inconclusive Research Myth. “The evidence on the effectiveness of vouchers is mixed and inconclusive.” “The highest quality research consistently shows that vouchers have a positive effect for students who receive them. The results are only mixed with regard to the scope and magnitude of vouchers’ benefits. The evidence for these benefits justifies a high level of confidence, especially when compared to the much weaker evidence supporting most major education policies.” “Every one of the eight random-assignment studies finds at least some positive academic effect for students using a voucher to attend a private school.”

    14. The Exeter Myth. “Private schools have higher test scores because they have more money and recruit high-performing students while expelling low-performing students. But the facts are that private schools spend much less per student than public schools, and private schools accept almost all students and expel few, compared to the public schools.

    15. The Draining Myth. “School choice harms public schools.” Evidence shows, however, that school choice improves the performance of public schools.

    16. The Disabled Need Not Apply Myth. “Private schools won’t serve disabled students.” But when vouchers give private schools the same resources as public schools, the private schools provide the needed services, along with better education.

    17. The Democratic Values Myth. “Private schools are less effective at promoting tolerance and civic participation.” Again, evidence shows otherwise.

    18. The Segregation Myth. “Private schools are more racially segregated than public schools.” “The bulk of those studies find that parental choice in education contributes to racial integration rather than promoting segregation.”

    When considering these myths, the author sees a pattern called the “meta-myth.” This myth says that education is different from almost everything else in that in education, behavior doesn’t respond to the same types of incentives that almost everything else in life responds to. We want to believe that the education of children is special, and that usual rules don’t apply. But that is false.

    This is a very well researched book that will help anyone interested in education policy understand schools and what works to increase positive outcomes for students. I think that members of the education establishment, that is the teachers unions, schools administrators, school board members, and politicians interested in the status quo, will not enjoy reading this book.

  • On Paul Mirecki

    There are two aspects to the Paul Mirecki matter that I haven’t seen discussed, or discussed only in passing.

    First: What if Professor Mirecki had made condescending and hateful remarks about “protected” or “favored” minority groups such as Jews, blacks, Hispanics, women, even Muslims? I am having trouble imagining what would have happened, but being insensitive to groups like these carries a much harsher penalty than insulting Christians, I am sure.

    Second: Shouldn’t we be concerned that a professor (a department chair no less) at the flagship university of our state, educated at the finest university in the world, writes so poorly? A writer, who seems to know what he (or she) is talking about, one who uses words like “puerile” and “dude” in the same post, analyzed the email on the Wichita Eagle Editorial Blog. (The link is http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2005/11/mythological_do.html#comments.) This writer noticed errors such as, and I quote from the post:

  • omitted apostrophe in “it’s,”
  • a serious agreement error in “THEIR big fat FACE” (should be “faces”)
  • another agreement error “their function” (should be “their functions”)
  • unidiomatic use of “in the light of” (should be “in light of”)

    • Those were some of the errors that I understood. There were more. This writer concluded: “This was not written by a Ph.D. at major university. If it were (note the correct use of the subjunctive mood, found so rarely these days), he should be fired for multiple violations of grammar rules.” That was the point of this writer’s post: that the email was not authentic, that it was not written by a university professor, because no university professor could write so poorly. Later, it was determined that the email was authentic.

    Why are Professor Mirecki and the University of Kansas not embarrassed about the correctness of the grammar and usage in this writing? Why is the whole state of Kansas not concerned about this? Does this send the appropriate message to schoolchildren? For this alone I am ashamed that I graduated from this university. I doubt that I will react positively to its fundraising requests from now on.

  • How government makes us unhappy

    Arthur C. Brooks, associate professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Affairs, has a commentary in the December 8, 2005 Wall Street Journal titled “Money Buys Happiness.” Rich people, the author tells us, are much more likely to say they are happy. Although we are becoming richer as a whole, the percent of people saying they are “very happy” is the same today as it was 30 years ago. Some people say it’s the rich having relatively more than others that makes them happy. This excess happiness of the rich being bad, they say, we should use progressive taxation to improve our “moral fiber” by making after-tax incomes less divergent.

    But is this a good idea? “In fact there is another explanation for unchanging happiness levels over time which is rather less supportive of income redistribution. As incomes rise, so generally do levels of government revenues and spending, and there is evidence that these forces work against personal income on the overall level of happiness. For example, a $1,000 increase in per capita income is associated with a one-point decrease in the percentage of Americans saying they are ‘not too happy.’ At the same time, a $1,000 increase in government revenues per capita is associated with a two-point rise in the percentage of Americans saying they are not too happy. In other words, not only can money buy happiness, but it may be that the government can tax it away as well.”

    Mr. Brooks also tells us that donating money and time — that is, the giving of charity — illustrates the link between money and happiness: “Givers of charity earn substantial mental and physical health rewards, even more than do the recipients of charity — empirical evidence that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive.”

    The actions of government can swamp private charity efforts. In the week after hurricane Katrina, I read that private donations had reached $600 million. I thought that was wonderful, until the next news story told me that Congress had just approved some $60 billion in relief, that being described as merely the down payment on the final spending. Government spending overwhelmed private charity, even though not many seem satisfied with the government response, and there are many stories of effective help supplied privately.

    So when government taxes us to pay for programs that take the rightful property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong, government harms us in two ways: it taxes away happiness and reduces our capacity to engage in charitable activity.

  • More Under Reported Kansas News

    More Under Reported Kansas News
    By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network

    There are at least two stories that have not received the mainstream news media attention that they deserve in Kansas. Kansans need more information than they have received and the readers should decide whether the following is unreported or just under reported in their daily, mainstream newspaper coverage.

    It was headlines across Kansas when Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison announced his candidacy for Attorney General. Morrison, a liberal Johnson County Republican prior to his announcement, bailed out of the GOP said he was going to run as a Democrat. This announcement and the headline news stories that followed led to analysis pieces discussing the split in the Kansas Republican Party and the “problems” facing Attorney General Phill Kline’s 2006 campaign for reelection.

    What is fascinating in seeing the mainstream Kansas press’ bias was a couple of weeks later when Attorney General Kline announced that 89 of 105 county sheriffs were endorsing him for reelection. Even more remarkable was the fact that 8 of 13 Democrat sheriffs were among the 89.

    There has been very little news media coverage of this announcement in the Kansas press. In a few cases the information has been grudgingly and belatedly provided. There have not been any “analysis” articles discussing the weakness in Morrison’s candidacy when over half of the sheriffs in his new party are already rejecting his candidacy. These endorsements have been filling the internet sites with comments about the 89 endorsements. It is noteworthy that the Kansas City Star did not mention this until over two weeks after the news conference where the Attorney General Kline made this announcement. This belated mention of this story in early December in the Kansas City Star is likely due to the pressure from internet bloggers’ commentaries.

    This reflects more badly upon the news coverage in the Kansas City Star, the Wichita Eagle, and the other daily papers that are trying to skew state news coverage the way the New York Times and Washington Post have been caught skewing national news.

    A second story that has been ignored involves the Texas Supreme Court’s decision on school finance. Texas’ highest court threw out their statewide property tax but specifically told the legislature that additional funds were not a solution needed to make their state’s school finance system pass constitutional requirements.

    This case is similar to the ongoing Kansas litigation in terms of subject but not in terms of remedy or violating the separation of powers provisions. So, the Texas case is not only timely but is also quite relevant since it contrasts with the Kansas court’s $853 million in new spending demands. The Texas court ruling is going to set the stage for that state’s 2006 legislative session. However, this ruling specifically avoids the ongoing spending edicts being issued by the top Kansas court’s school finance edicts. Kansas is awaiting more edicts from our judicial masters.

    That’s a notable judicial difference. Kansans should know that five of the seven members of the Kansas Supreme Court are registered Democrats. Kansas Chief Justice Kay McFarland may complain about the fact that citizens are restless about her court’s edicts and activism on school finance, the death penalty, the court’s support for eminent domain abuses, and other hot button social issues. There are consequences to judicial short-circuiting of the political process to arrive at the politically correct conclusions of our new judicial oligarchs.

    The Kansas Supreme Court needs to be seen as the Sebelius court with her appointments, her campaign manager’s family ties to this court, and the Democratic domination among its members. The contrast, as well as the similarities, between Kansas and Texas in this school finance litigation is an important story that deserves more attention than it has received.

  • More favorite computer and Internet things

    More things I like and use. The first article is here: Favorite Internet and computer things.

    A Notebook Computer

    Until this year I had never owned a notebook computer. But now that I do, I understand and appreciate the benefits of portability. When combined with a wireless network, I can sit anywhere in my house and do any sort of computing that I want. The backyard deck and front porch are possibilities, too. Even if the computer was to be totally deskbound, a notebook computer is still nice for its small size.

    Today you can get serviceable notebook computers for under $1,000, and if you spend a little more than that you can get a really nice computer with a lot of memory and disk storage capacity, and a nice high-resolution screen for easy viewing. For accessories, I recommend a carry case if you’ll be traveling. I find a traditional mouse much easier to use than the touch pads built into most notebook computers, so a mouse is nice to have. At work I have a docking station and a stand for mine, so each morning I “snap” my computer into its stand, and immediately it’s connected to my office network and other devices, including a full-size keyboard and mouse.

    An External Disk Drive

    An external hard disk drive is a device about the size of a book that sits on the desk alongside your desktop or notebook computer. It connects to your computer through USB or fire wire connection. Models available today hold from 100 GB up to 300 GB or maybe even more. A 200 GB model can be purchased for under $200.

    What’s so important about this type of drive? Backup. Backup. Did I say backup? I find that most people in their homes — and many people even in their offices — don’t have a reasonable level of backup protection for their data. An external drive can easily provide that. Combined with the backup software that might be included with the external drive — or by using a program like NTI Shadow that I use — the external drive can make automatic backups. In the case of NTI Shadow, as I save a file to my computer’s regular internal disk drive, the software also saves it to the external drive. I have the Shadow software configured to keep several generations of my files so I can find old versions if I mistakenly mangle a file and don’t realize it right away.

    The portability of the external drive is important, too. You can move it from computer to computer. Or, if you realize something bad is about to happen — say a hurricane or tornado — you can grab it and run.

    In the past backup protection like this was usually provided by tape. Today, hard disk drive storage is so inexpensive, and so much more convenient, that these external drives have largely replaced tape for this type of personal backup.

    PGP and Whole Disk Encryption

    PGP, standing for Pretty Good Privacy, is a method for encrypting data. Whole Disk Encryption is a program sold by PGP Corporation that encrypts all the data on a computer’s disk drive. Many companies have recently implemented a policy that all notebook computers will have their disks encrypted in this way. I have done this to my notebook computer.

    What this means is if that someone were to obtain my computer, they would not be able to use the data stored on it. Even if they removed the disk drive and installed it in another computer, they would not be able to use the data. This gives me a lot of peace of mind. I often read news stories that a computer belonging to an employee of (insert name of well-known corporation) was (stolen, lost, misplaced) and it contained records for thousands of (employees, patients, customers). With whole-disk encryption, I do not have to worry about this embarrassment and liability.

    Picasa

    Picasa is photo management software from Google. It’s free and works very well. I recommend considering it for your digital photos.

    Google Analytics

    In the past month Google made available a service called Google Analytics. This service provides comprehensive analysis of the traffic a web site receives. To use it you install some Google-supplied html code in your web pages. Then you use the Google Analytics web site to view information about the traffic your web site has received. It’s amazing to me that a service this comprehensive can be offered at no charge.

    HTML-kit

    HTML-kit is a free html editing program with many features. I recommend it if you want to write html by hand, the old-fashioned way. It’s available for download at http://www.chami.com/html-kit. Optional registration gives extra features such as a table editor.

    Copernic Desktop Search

    In a recent article Favorite Internet and Computer Things I mentioned how I read many newspapers and magazines in their online versions. I also save many articles using the “Save as ‘Web archive, single file’” feature of Internet Explorer, or sometimes by creating pdf files. (It’s important to save articles, as many publications restrict access to them after some time. For the New York Times, for example, articles disappear behind a “paywall” after seven days.)

    The problem, then, becomes how to search through these articles that I’ve saved. I had been using the generally very good Google Desktop Search, but it didn’t index and search the web archive files. Google Desktop Search does, however, allow other to write plug-ins to extend its features, and there were some available to search web archive files. Try as I might, I couldn’t get them to work.

    I became aware of and downloaded the free Copernic Desktop Search. It, with a little configuration, indexes and searches web archive files very well. It’s free, and works so nicely that I may investigate purchasing one of their personal or professional versions, which look to offer some promising technology for general Internet searching.

    I was able to configure Copernic Desktop search to index all the source code to the computer programs I write, which is a valuable capability.

    You can learn more and download here.