Voice For Liberty

Tag: Free markets

  • Sedgwick County Commissioners applauded

    This letter also appeared in the Wichita Eagle.

    We were pleased to see the Sedgwick County Commission vote this week to stop the proposed TIF district in the Planeview neighborhood. Commissioners correctly determined that approval of the TIF would have adversely affected other businesses in the area.

    Several grocery stores are already operating in that neighborhood – without government subsidies. Approving the TIF district would have hurt those businesses by forcing them help subsidize their competition.

    This proposed project is another example of letting the government choose winners and losers in the marketplace. We applaud commissioners for listening to the small business owners in the Planeview neighborhood, and for voting in favor of free markets and free enterprise.

    Susan Estes
    Field Director
    Americans for Prosperity-Kansas
    Wichita

  • Who is Americans For Prosperity?

    By Derrick Sontag, Kansas State Director, Americans for Prosperity. Kansas was one of the first states to have an AFP chapter.

    In recent weeks members of the press and even President Barack Obama have asked, “Who is Americans for Prosperity?” In asking this, many have implied AFP is just a front group for large corporations or as President Obama speculated, perhaps it’s even a “foreign controlled entity.”

    The answer is simple. Americans For Prosperity is a non-partisan, grassroots-driven organization that advocates for limited government and free market principles, principles under constant attack at every level of government today.

    AFP provides a voice for its more than 1.5 million activist members, including 40,000 in Kansas, to counter the powerful big government lobby that hovers on Capitol Hill and in state capitols like ours in Topeka. Being a part of an organization like AFP provides concerned citizens the tools to directly challenge the progressive agenda being advocated for by the multitude of special interest groups that try to influence elected officials on a daily basis.

    Since its inception in 2004, AFP has advocated for personal property rights, lower taxes and fewer government regulations, and to slow down the growth in government spending. Recently, we’ve voiced loud opposition to the numerous bailouts in which the government is picking the winners and losers in the marketplace, an act that threatens the viability of the free market itself. We have been vocal in opposing job-destroying legislation like cap and trade that would dramatically increase consumer prices and drive American businesses to countries with fewer regulations or force them to close up shop altogether. Perhaps most of all, the liberal elite dislikes us because of our opposition to the government takeover of our health care system.

    With a simple yet vitally important agenda like that, it’s no wonder we’re being targeted by members of the liberal elite. President Obama recently said that the “biggest problem we all have across the country right now … is groups like Americans For Prosperity.” Not the near ten percent unemployment rate but rather, the biggest problem according to the president is groups like AFP daring to challenge the progressive policies being put forth across the country.

    With this apparent coordinated attack on AFP and its limited government and free market oriented platform, one could easily conclude there are some in this country who fear that our message is resonating with the American people.

  • New Yorker article on Koch deconstructed, again

    Today Elaine Lafferty contributes an interview with David Koch and helps to deconstruct the recent News Yorker magazine piece about him, his brother Charles Koch, and Koch Industries.

    One of the most baseless claims made in the New Yorker article is that Charles and David Koch have sought to operate secretly. This charge has been made in other contexts, too. This article quotes David Koch’s assessment of this: “If what I and my brother believe in, and advocate for, is secret, it’s the worst covert operation in history.”

    Lafferty also touches on a subject that needs more illumination: the political tone-deafness of those who describe Charles and David Koch as “Republican right-wingers.” One of the institutions associated with the Kochs is the Cato Institute. In describing its philosophy as “libertarianism” or “market liberalism,” the Cato website says: “It combines an appreciation for entrepreneurship, the market process, and lower taxes with strict respect for civil liberties and skepticism about the benefits of both the welfare state and foreign military adventurism.”

    Any organization that believes, as Cato does, in opposition to the war in Iraq, ending the prohibition of drugs, and marriage equality, is far from what is usually deemed to be “right-wing” or even “conservative.” Many observers and commentators are not able to make these distinctions.

    The article also addresses the issue of Koch Industries being a polluter, and explains David Koch’s advocacy for, and financial support of, cancer research.

    David Koch Fires Back at the New Yorker

    By Elaine Lafferty

    David Koch is steaming.

    “It’s hateful. It’s ludicrous. And it’s plain wrong.”

    The object of his ire is a 9,963 word story in The New Yorker magazine, published last week which accuses David, his brother Charles, and Koch Industries of … well, just about everything: Secretly funding the Tea Party movement, secretly manipulating the Smithsonian, along with, not-so-secretly polluting the planet, stealing oil from Native American land, denying the existence of climate change, and promoting carcinogens — all in the self-interest of making further billions.

    Continue reading at David Koch Fires Back at the New Yorker

  • Author C. Bradley Thompson to appear in Wichita

    Next week author and scholar C. Bradley Thompson will deliver two public lectures in Wichita.

    On Thursday September 16 Thompson will speak on the topic “Two Americas: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Freedom.” This lecture is sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute and underwritten by the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation. The event begins at 5:30 pm with a complimentary reception followed by the program at 6:15 pm. Seating is limited and reservations are required no later than Friday, September 10th by phoning 316-828-5624. This event will be at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Wichita.

    “We are delighted to have one of the nation’s foremost experts on the Constitution speaking on such an important topic at our third annual public forum in Wichita,” said Dr. Jason Ross, vice president of education programs at the Bill of Rights Institute. “Constitution Day gives us the opportunity to reflect on the blessings of liberty Americans have enjoyed, and on the challenge of preserving these liberties for our children. I know Dr. Thompson’s remarks will help Wichita citizens understand and appreciate the importance of our Constitution at this pivotal time in our nation’s history.”

    “This public lecture offers a rare opportunity to interact with such an engaging and acclaimed scholar,” said Susan Addington, grants manager for the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation. “Dr. Thompson’s knowledge of history and deep understanding of our nation’s Constitution will make this an inspiring presentation.”

    In addition to the public lecture, Dr. Thompson will offer a day-long Constitutional Seminar for Wichita-area social studies teachers of grades 8-12 titled, “Liberty and the Founders: In Their Own Words,” also sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute and funded by the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation. Teachers will participate in discussions led by Dr. Thompson and three teaching strategies sessions conducted by Bill of Rights Institute Master Teacher, Gennie Westbrook.

    On Wednesday September 15, Thompson will speak at the CAC Theater on the Wichita State University Campus on Wednesday, September 15, 2010, with this schedule:
    6:00 pm Doors open for meet and greet
    7:00 pm Lecture
    7:45 pm to 9:00 pm Questions and Answers

    The event is free for WSU students and all school age children. A donation of $10 is requested but not required of all adults to help cover the expenses.

    C. Bradley Thompson is the BB&T Research Professor at Clemson University and the Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has also been a visiting fellow at Princeton and Harvard universities and at the University of London.

    Professor Thompson is the author of the prize-winning book John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty. He has also edited The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, Antislavery Political Writings, 1833-1860: A Reader and was an associate editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. His current book project is on “The Ideological Origins of American Constitutionalism.”

  • Kochs and Soros, contrasted and compared

    Daniel Fisher of Forbes Magazine weighs in again on mainstream media demonetization of Charles and David Koch for their support of organizations committed to economic freedom and liberty.

    Here, Fisher compares and contrasts the Kochs to George Soros, the celebrated financier of many left-wing causes, and to a much greater extent than the Kochs:

    “According to the most recent reports available, Soros has donated some $2 billion to his Open Society Institute, which pursues a wide variety of political initiatives around the world. Much of the money went to support pro-democracy activists and the like battling corrupt and oppressive regimes.” That sounds like a noble cause. Perhaps someday some might be used to combat the oppressive Obama regime here in America.

    Here in the United States, however, Soros money flows to the same types of organizations and the same types of uses for which the political Left is vigorously attacking Charles and David Koch:

    Here in the U.S., the institution has backed a profusion of community organization, “education” and get-out-the-vote groups that seem to have concentrated their activities in important swing states like Michigan and Ohio in the 2008 election year. No reports are available for 2010 but it’s a safe bet a similar amount flowed to organizations which, while not explicitly in favor of a specific candidate, support cherished causes of the Democratic Party and its financial supporters: non-judicial elections, municipal employee unions, universal healthcare.

    One of the outfits that’s received a lot of Soros money over the years is the Center for American Progress, recipient of $1 million from Soros in 2008. CAP, a left-wing think tank that supports increasing government intervention and opposes economic freedom, may be of interest to those in the south-central Kansas fourth Congressional district as the former workplace of Democratic Party candidate Raj Goyle.

    While Soros has made his contribution to CAP a matter of public knowledge, CAP does not disclose all its donors. CAP takes advantage of the same confidentiality provisions in the law that the political Left criticizes groups like Americans for Prosperity for using. But for some reason, we don’t see mainstream media references to this, and liberals seem blind to the parallels.

    We also don’t see much reference to the way Soros earned his fortune. A hedge fund operator and speculator, Soros was actually convicted of insider trading. Yet the Left hammers on Koch Industries for providing energy that America has used to power its economic growth, and energy we will continue to need.

    Soros Makes The Kochs Look Like Political Skinflints

    By Daniel Fisher

    Jane Mayer’s New Yorker profile of the Koch brothers paints a picture of a Wichita-based empire that stealthily reinvests its profits from oil refining and manufacturing into a constellation of vaguely menacing right-wing organizations. Leave aside the valid criticism that the Kochs have been anything but stealthy in their funding, which tends to undermine the title of the article, “Covert Operations.” Writers can always blame an editor for the headline.

    What about the idea there’s something aberrational about the amount of money the Kochs are pouring into politics? According to Mayer, Charles and David Koch, personally and through foundations and political action committees, poured $250 million or so into charities, think-tanks and political campaigns between 1998 and 2008. Much of that went to groups like Lincoln Center that the average New Yorker reader could hardly consider a hotbed of constitution-in-exile, would-be McVeighs frothing at the idea of the Obama presidency.

    Continue reading at Forbes

  • In Left’s attack on Koch Industries, facts sometimes don’t matter

    Sometimes in politics hatred runs so deep that facts simply don’t matter.

    We saw an example of this Wednesday in Overland Park, Kansas as a group of two “theatrical protesters” sought to inform attendees at an Americans for Prosperity rally about what they thought was the true nature of that organization.

    Their argument, presented in a handout paid for by the Kansas Democratic Party and given to attendees, went like this:

    First: “My friends at Americans for Prosperity can be a little shy — which is why they’ve outsourced the job of letting you know who they really are to me.”

    This charge of outsourcing — made by two women theatrically dressed in sorcerer’s outfits: “out sourcerers,” get it? — is a common criticism of big business. Democrats often campaign on a pledge of eliminating tax breaks for American companies that outsource jobs overseas. Whether these jobs are created at the expense of American jobs is a matter of contention.

    Then, the handout notes a fact that I think just about everyone knows by now and has never been hidden: “Americans for Prosperity was founded by billionaire CEO David Koch. [New York Times, 7/10/08]”

    (Not to quibble too much here, but the New York Times article referenced describes David Koch’s position as “executive vice president and a board member of Koch Industries,” not CEO.)

    Then comes the heart of the charge: that Koch Industries outsources American jobs to China: “One of Koch Industries’ key subsidiaries actually won an award for Outsourcing Excellence” after they shipped American jobs to China. [Freeborders Press Release, 6/1/06; http://www.invista.com/page_whois_shareholder_en.shtml]”

    Earl Glynn of Kansas Watchdog looked into this matter and found out that the outsourcing took place before Koch Industries owned INVISTA, the company that did the outsourcing — and a small job it was at that. Below I quote at length from the article AFP Bus Stop in Overland Park Greeted by “Out-Sourcerers”. There’s video of the theatrical protestors in the Kansas Watchdiogarticle:

    The “Out Sourcerers” also complained about the out sourcing of jobs by Koch Industries in their handout:

    One of Koch Industries’ key subsidiaries actually won an award for “Outsourcing Excellence”; after they shipped American jobs to China. [Freeborders Press Release, 6/1/06; http://www.invista.com/page_whois_shareholder_en.shtml]

    Google cache shows this online article from June 2006 about this “Outsourcing Excellence Award.” The description of the project for this award was “an interactive online sales platform for textile mills to market fabrics directly to garment vendors, brands and retailers anywhere in the world.”

    Freeborders used its strategy of onshore project management in both Europe and the US, coupled with offshore development at its Shenzhen, China facilities to complete the project three weeks ahead of schedule. The new platform was launched in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific and over 700 brand and retail companies, registered in the first five weeks. The platform ultimately connected 600 textile manufacturers in 40 countries to over 1,000 brands and retailers worldwide.

    An online article Lessons Learned From This Year’s Awards from Aug. 2006 describes the “outsourcing” that was used to “meet impossible deadlines” over an 8 week period to win the award:

    INVISTA then hired Freeborders, a supplier that agreed to meet the demanding deadline by putting together teams in the US, Europe, and China who literally worked around the clock. With eight weeks left, the buyer asked Freeborders if it could deliver the library three weeks early so it could demonstrate the program at a trade show in Miami. And Freeborders did.

    How many permanent jobs could have been involved in meeting “impossible deadlines” over an 8 week period?

    But that’s not the whole story either:

    • In 2001, three years before INVISTA was acquired by Koch Industries, INVISTA’s former owner outsourced an IT project to a global consulting firm. Fewer than 20 of the consulting firm’s employees worked on the project. It was completed in 2001.
    • Five years later, that 2001 IT project was given an “outsourcing award” (in an award category titled “Best European collaboration” given that the project was initiated out of a European office of INVISTA’s former owner).

    A DuPont press release from Nov. 2003 explained the sale of INVISTA by DuPont to subsidiaries of Koch. At that time INVISTA had 18,000 employees at 50 global manufacturing sites. The press release does not mention if any of the DuPont resources were in Wichita or Kansas.

    The Out Sourcerers’ claims about Koch Industries outsourcing jobs from Wichita or Kansas is about politics, not jobs in Wichita or Kansas.

    Koch Industries has 70,000 employees in 60 countries. The majority of the employees — more than 50,000 — are employed in North America with about 2,200 employees in Wichita.

  • Left’s double standard on Kochs and Soros

    Evidence continues to mount that the political Left — most recently in the form of New Yorker magazine’s Jane Mayer and her criticism of Charles and David Koch — simply doesn’t understand liberty-based thinking and political positions. Following, Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner explains.

    Some of Carney’s most important points:

    • Regulation is often used to increase barriers to entry to an industry, thereby increasing the value of existing companies. But the Kochs oppose heavy-handed regulation.
    • Many energy companies view greenhouse gas regulations as a way to increase profits. Not so for Koch Industries.
    • Economic freedom, which Charles and David Koch have advocated for many years, is good not only for business, but for everyone.

    Left’s double standard on Kochs and Soros

    By Timothy P. Carney

    I was the main speaker of the night at a fancy dinner. The crowd included millionaire business owners and corporate executives. And the man who introduced me, and who had invited me to speak, was billionaire industrialist Charles Koch.

    My topic was what it always is: the evils of corporate welfare and bailouts, and the destructive influence of the Big Business lobby in Washington. In my talk, I blasted “regulatory robber barons” and “subsidy sucklers.”

    But if you follow the Left’s talking points, my talk was part of Koch’s “pro-corporate movement.”

    Continue reading at the Washington Examiner

  • Prices mean something, even life and death

    In the five years since Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, some $15 billion has been spent rebuilding and strengthening that city’s flood defenses. The goal is to protect against the loss of life and property that happened in 2005 when the levies failed.

    Is this wise? Will it work? Mark Thornton wrote “The sad truth is that the government is only making things worse over time. Higher levies only increase the destructive force of future levy breaks.”

    But engineers say that if Katrina arrived today, the city would experience only light flooding. But what will happen in the future? The network of flood protection structures and machinery needs constant maintenance. Reporting in the Wall Street Journal cautions that “Another big question is who will pay the tens of millions of dollars in annual maintenance costs for the new structures once they are complete. Typically, the Corps hands the responsibility of upkeep to state and local authorities after completing a flood-control project. But city officials say the infrastructure is so large and complex that they don’t have the technical expertise to go it alone — or pay for it alone.”

    So there is a definite risk that the strengthening of the city’s flood defenses may make future failures even more disastrous. There’s also the risk that these structures will not be maintained as required. In the latter case, how will we know if the protections are being maintained adequately?

    The answer is we probably won’t know. That’s because the property in New Orleans is insured by the federal government’s flood insurance program. That program, unlike private insurance, doesn’t have to earn a profit, and therefore doesn’t have to price its insurance according to the risks it is covering.

    That’s different from the way fire insurance, for example, is priced. In this case, fire insurance companies have to price their product to cover their expected loses, their other costs, and return some profit. The expected loses are based on a variety of factors, such as characteristics of the home, distance from a fire hydrant, and the qualities of a city’s fire department.

    Many cities have their fire departments rated by a company called Insurance Services Office (ISO). This rating is a major factor in the insurance rates that companies will offer to customers in a city. If a city’s ISO rating declines, meaning that its fire defenses are not as good as before, insurance rates will rise. People will notice. They’ll wonder why and seek answers.

    But government does not face the discipline of profit as do private insurers. As has been noted, government will insure insane risks for very low premiums. And if it pays a loss, it will insure the same property again. Since it isn’t in the insurance business to make money, it doesn’t really have much motive to rate the risk of the property it is insuring.

    That’s the source of the problem. The New Orleans flood protection systems lacked the oversight and inquiring eyes of profit-minded companies. The result was death and destruction on a massive scale.

    So prices and their importance are not of interest only to economists and academics. They contain, as Hayek has taught us, a tremendous amount of information gathered from many sources. Prices can literally mean the difference between life and death.

    Some may object that insurance in some locations, like New Orleans, would be expensive if it was priced to reflect the actual risk faced. That’s probably true, and that’s good. When that extra cost is spread across the entire country through government insurance programs, residents of New Orleans can get cheap insurance. But as we’ve seen, the cost of the missing information that accurate prices provide is very high.

  • For downtown Wichita, Mayor Brewer has a vision

    In Sunday’s Wichita Eagle, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer penned a piece that states his belief in the importance of downtown and prepares the people of Wichita for the start of a prescriptive planning process, with accompanying subsidy to politically-favored developers willing to fulfill the plan.

    The mayor used the word “vibrant” twice. Asking citizens a question like “Would you like to have a vibrant downtown?” is meaningless. Who doesn’t? It’s only when the question is accompanied by context that citizens can start to understand how they should answer.

    For example, in the mayor’s article, he mentions the use of special assessment financing that funded suburban infrastructure, and that this is not sufficient for downtown needs. This statement reveals a misunderstanding by the mayor about the various forms of financing that might be used to help development.

    Special assessment financing means that the city spends money to build something, like the new street to serve a site where someone wants to build a house or a shopping center. The cost of this street, plus interest, is added to the property’s tax bill over a period of years. The property owner doesn’t get anything for free.

    But in the forms of financing that the mayor and city hall planners favor for downtown, developers do get something for free. Under tax increment financing (TIF), developers get to use their property taxes to pay for the same infrastructure that everyone else has to pay for. That’s because in TIF, the increment in property taxes are used to pay off bonds that were issued for the exclusive benefit of a development. Or, as in the case with a new form of TIF called pay-as-you-go, the increment in property taxes are simply given back to the developer. (Which leads to the question: why even pay at all?)

    Some deny that TIF directly enriches the developer. They’ll make arguments such as “it’s only used for infrastructure and eligible expenses” or “it’s not lending, it’s bonding” or “it wouldn’t happen but for TIF” or the biggest lie: TIF doesn’t have any cost. But despite these claims, TIF has a cost, and it does directly enrich the developer. That’s its entire purpose; its reason for being. If TIF didn’t enrich the developer, how does it change something that is claimed to be not economically feasible into something that is?

    While city leaders say that public participation in the revitalization of downtown is to be limited, we should be cautious and skeptical. Goody Clancy planners have said that public participation will be limited to TIF. This is bad in its own right and should be opposed on its merits.

    We need to be skeptical of the mayor and downtown planners because there isn’t enough TIF money available to do what they want to do. I fully expect a citywide sales tax, probably in the amount of one cent per dollar, to be proposed for the benefit of downtown subsidized developers. City leaders speak fondly of such a tax that Oklahoma City has used for many years.

    City leaders have already shown themselves to be not averse to imposing additional sales taxes in Wichitans and our visitors, having granted several Community Improvement Districts the ability to charge up to an additional two cents per dollar sales tax. This means that when visitors check out of the Fairfield Inn in downtown Wichita, they’ll be faced with a sales tax rate of 9.3 percent. That’s in addition to the six percent guest tax, which in the case of this hotel is collected for the exclusive benefit of itself, rather than funding general government and tourism activities.

    More community improvement districts are in the works. Wichita may soon be peppered with them.

    No faith in free markets means no faith in people

    The unwillingness of Wichita city leaders to let Wichitans freely decide where they live, and Wichita businesses freely decide where to locate, is a sign of lack of confidence in free markets and the people of Wichita. Because Wichitans do not choose to live and locate their business firms where politicians like Carl Brewer and Janet Miller — to name just two — and city hall bureaucrats like Wichita city manager Bob Layton and Wichita economic development director Allen Bell want them to, they deliver a slap in the face. It appears in the form of a vision backed up by planning, regulation, and the power to dish out favorable tax treatment, as outlined above.

    Once formed, a vision is a powerful force. Randal O’Toole, author of The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future has written about visionaries and government planning:

    The worst thing about having a vision is that it confers upon the visionary a moral absolutism: only highly prescriptive regulation can ensure that the vision overcomes an uncaring populace responding to a free market that planners do not really trust. But the more prescriptive the plan, the more likely it is that the plan will be wrong, and such errors will prove extremely costly for the city or region that tries to implement the plan.

    An example of planning that many see as having gone wrong is the government planning that led to growth on the city’s fringes. An example that helped make this possible is the government’s decision to build the northeast expressway also known as K-96. Acts of government like this are claimed to have caused the demise of downtown, the very situation that planners now want to correct.

    With government making “mistakes” (their claim, not mine) like this on a grand scale, why are we willing to trust that politicians and bureaucrats are making correct decisions now? Especially when you look at the campaign finance reports of most city council members and see the same names giving repeatedly to all council members, with these same names appearing repeatedly before the council asking for their subsidy. This is not a decision making process that gives citizens confidence.

    It bears repeating: the existence of the downtown planning process tells Wichitans they’ve made a mistake in where they chose to buy a home or build a business. Not only will Wichitans have to pay for what they freely chose, they’re going to be asked to pay again so that those with purportedly superior vision can have their way.