Voice For Liberty

Tag: Interventionism

  • Wichita may choose more centralized planning

    This Tuesday (April 17th) the Wichita City Council will consider its participation in the REAP sustainable communities planning process. Wichita ought to reject this expansion of centralized planning, as the outcome will likely serve special interests at the expense of economic growth and jobs for everyone else.

    The relevant pages from the agenda packet are available at REAP Consortium Agreement for South-Central Kansas Sustainable Communities.

    Who makes the plan? And for whom?

    Yes, planning is important. It’s likely that several Wichita city council members will use this as a factor in deciding to vote for the sustainable communities planning process. But these members will fail to distinguish between government plans and all others.

    They will fail to distinguish that when individuals and businesses plan, they are planning for themselves and no one else. They are engaging in a voluntary act. But when government plans, the plans are drawn for others — whether they want to be in a plan or not, whether they agree with the principles and goals or not.

    Furthermore, these members will fail to recognize that when governments plan, special interest groups soon appropriate the plans to benefit themselves. An example is the state’s highway plan, with the campaign for increased highway spending funded by the construction industries. They would lobby to build highways to nowhere, as long as they receive contracts for their construction.

    The planners themselves are a special interest group, too. They need jobs. Like most government bureaucrats, they “profit” from increasing their power and influence, and by expansion of their budgets and staffs. So when Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Skelton asks a professional planner questions about the desirability of planning, what answer does he think he will get? It’s not that the planners are not honest people. But they have a vested economic and professional interest in seeing that we have more government planning, not less.

    And we have evidence that planners watch out for themselves. It is not disputed that this planning grant benefits Regional Economic Area Partnership (REAP). Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau says that John Schlegel, Wichita’s Director of Planning, told him that “acceptance of this grant will take REAP to another level, because right now they are struggling, and this will help plot the course for REAP.” He said that REAP, which is housed at the Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs at Wichita State University, needs to expand its role and authority in order to give it “something to do.”

    So we see that REAP is another special interest group seeking to benefit itself. In this case, our best hope is that REAP engages in merely make-work, that the plan it produces is put on a shelf and ignored, and that the only harm to us is the $1.5 million cost of the plan.

    The knowledge problem

    There’s also the problem of the knowledge needed to plan. This is enough of a problem when individuals and businesses plan for themselves. It’s a tremendous — and unsolvable — problem when trying to plan for an entire region, even one as small as downtown Wichita. Arnold King has written about the ability of government experts to decide what investments should be made with public funds. There’s a problem with knowledge and power:

    As Hayek pointed out, knowledge that is important in the economy is dispersed. Consumers understand their own wants and business managers understand their technological opportunities and constraints to a greater degree than they can articulate and to a far greater degree than experts can understand and absorb.

    When knowledge is dispersed but power is concentrated, I call this the knowledge-power discrepancy. Such discrepancies can arise in large firms, where CEOs can fail to appreciate the significance of what is known by some of their subordinates. … With government experts, the knowledge-power discrepancy is particularly acute.

    Another favorite thought from Friedrich Hayek is in his book The Fatal Conceit: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” But they will try.

    REAP has much information about the process on its website devoted to the grant, located at Sustainable Communities Grant 2011. I would especially encourage reading the document “Sustainable Communities Work Plan DRAFT.” In there you can learn of the plans to “decrease per capita Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).” This plan, if it succeeds, will harm citizens’ mobility and economic opportunities, especially for the people who need jobs most.

    Cato Institute Senior Fellow Randal O’Toole, author of The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future, writes the following regarding the tremendous boost the personal automobile has given Americans: “Since the dawn of the Republic, no invention has enhanced the quality of life of the average American as much as the mass-produced automobile. Americans today are far more mobile, they earn much higher incomes, and they have access to far more consumer goods than a hundred years ago. It is no exaggeration to attribute most of these improvements to the wide availability of automobiles.”

    Remember, the sustainable communities planning process is definitely anti-automobile. One of the goals for the plan is: “Regional Transportation Plan: Develop multi-modal transportation options/programs for the region and connects housing options to emerging employment clusters.” This sounds like a good and noble idea. But in practice, government transit systems fail to produce what riders truly need, and are very expensive. The last time I checked, only 22.5 percent of the costs of running the Wichita transit system is paid for by riders through the fare box. Taxpayers — most of whom don’t ride the buses — pay the rest.

    But owning an automobile gives people mobility, and that is very important for workers. Some examples:

    “Studies show that car ownership is a significant factor in improving the employment status of welfare recipients.” (Job Access, Commute, and Travel Burden Among Welfare Recipients)

    “Raphael and Rice (2002) found in their study that car ownership has a strong effect on the probability of an individual being employed as well as on the number of hours they work per week. Generally, car ownership better enables job seekers to look for jobs. They can consider work outside of regular transit service hours, and they can travel faster, more safely, and more flexibly than with public transportation.” (Transportation & Work: Exploring Car Usage and Employment Outcomes in the LSAL Data)

    Also from this study: “Overall, car ownership does appear to have an important relationship to employment status, wages, and weeks worked.” And “Having a car as a primary mode of transportation makes a respondent four times as likely to be employed. Car ownership also improves earnings by several hundred dollars and increases weeks worked by up to eleven weeks.”

    In the rankings of factors that are important to obtaining employment, a car was more useful than a high-school-equivalent diploma. We should be working to increase automobile ownership, especially among lower-income people. The planning process Wichita is considering adopting, with its emphasis on government transit rather than private automobiles, will decrease mobility and economic opportunity for everyone.

    Finally, consider this from O’Toole on how the planning process ignores reality: “Transit advocates will point out that the autos driving on congested urban highways often have only one occupant. But that is exactly the point: If modern life is so decentralized that carpooling makes no sense for most commuters, how are giant buses and high-capacity trains going to work?” Fortunately, I don’t think high-capacity trains are seriously considered for the Wichita area. But the planners want more government transit and less private automobiles, despite our dectralized lifestyle.

    —

    Last week Wendell Cox appeared on an episode of the Jason Lewis radio program and talked about sustainable communities, etc. Sedgwick County and Wichita were mentioned. His recent piece is the Wall Street Journal is California Declares War on Suburbia: Planners want to herd millions into densely packed urban corridors. It won’t save the planet but will make traffic even worse.

  • Kansas should improve economic climate, rely less on incentives

    By Maurice McTigue, Vice President and Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He participated in the forum produced by Kansas Policy Institute this week.

    Kansas policymakers left for recess on the heels of a very disappointing jobs report last week. According to the latest jobs report, the state ranked fourth in terms of jobs lost with a 5,700 decrease in employment. As legislators prepare to return in a couple weeks, they should consider what’s best for the Kansas economy. That is, pursue goals that make Kansas a better place to do business than any other state.

    Kansas has a history of giving incentives to attract business. Despite this, businesses are leaving, and taking jobs and revenue with them. Legislators should look at all the hoops businesses must go through in Kansas and decide what hurdles can be removed to eliminate uncertainty and make the state more attractive for investment. Instead of asking what subsidy Kansas can give firms to get them to do business here, policymakers should ask existing business what it needs to operate more efficiently and effectively.

    Certainty is a key component to sound economic development because it allows businesses to make permanent plans and decisions.

    If Kansas had an economic climate that made it the best place to do business, regardless of outside contracts, defense restructuring, or inside subsidies, Boeing might not be leaving in 2013. If businesses understand the tax and regulatory landscape, and can count on it to be permanent, they can make good decisions. Outside factors are offset by a predictable and stable economic climate that allows them to be profitable. Certainty keeps jobs in Kansas creating revenue, not incentives.

    The problem with incentives is that they are not free, and result in a cost to someone else since they come from tax revenue. The referendum on the Ambassador Hotel tax exemption in Wichita illustrates this lose-lose situation. If the hotel needs a tax credit to do business, it was likely not competitive in the first place. Businesses and taxpayers naturally oppose unfair advantages, and once subsidies are gone, the business may fail anyway.

    To compete, Kansas should first think about businesses and people trading in the local economy and what permanent changes it would take to expand those businesses, instead of offering subsides. For sustainable economic growth, it is better to have 1,000 local businesses hire one extra person than use an incentive to bring in one business that may hire 1,000. Those jobs stay because of the permanent and positive business climate generating revenue, as opposed to jobs resulting from incentives that may leave and cost revenue dollars.

    Once achieved, economic competitiveness is not something that can then be forgotten. A major role for any economic development agency should be vigilance in seeking competitive improvements. This includes monitoring processes and procedures that make the state unproductive and advocate for their removal or reform.

    Key battles on taxes and the budget lie ahead; jobs and Kansas’s future are at stake. Let’s hope decision makers see fit to avoid merely doing things as they have always been done. Most incentives or subsidies are payments to compensate for things in the economy that need to be fixed, but nobody wants to make the necessary changes. A better economic development program is cultivating a climate where it is unnecessary to offer any special incentives to encourage business and investors to come to your state.

  • Thinking beyond stage one in economic development for Wichita

    Critics of the economic development policies in use by the City of Wichita are often portrayed as not being able to see and appreciate the good things these policies are producing, even though they are unfolding right before our very eyes. The difference is that some look beyond the immediate — what is seen — and ask “And then what will happen?” — looking for the unseen.

    Thomas Sowell explains the problem in a passage from the first chapter of Applied economics: thinking beyond stage one:

    When we are talking about applied economic policies, we are no longer talking about pure economic principles, but about the interactions of politics and economics. The principles of economics remain the same, but the likelihood of those principles being applied unchanged is considerably reduced, because politics has its own principles and imperatives. It is not just that politicians’ top priority is getting elected and re-elected, or that their time horizon seldom extends beyond the next election. The general public as well behaves differently when making political decisions rather than economic decisions. Virtually no one puts as much time and close attention into deciding whether to vote for one candidate rather than another as is usually put into deciding whether to buy one house rather than another — or perhaps even one car rather than another.

    The voter’s political decisions involve having a minute influence on policies which affect many other people, while economic decision-making is about having a major effect on one’s own personal well-being. It should not be surprising that the quantity and quality of thinking going into these very different kinds of decisions differ correspondingly. One of the ways in which these decisions differ is in not thinking through political decisions beyond the immediate consequences. When most voters do not think beyond stage one, many elected officials have no incentive to weigh what the consequences will be in later stages — and considerable incentives to avoid getting beyond what their constituents think and understand, for fear that rival politicians can drive a wedge between them and their constituents by catering to public misconceptions.

    The economic decisions made by governing bodies like the Wichita City Council have a large impact on the lives of Wichitans. But as Sowell explains, these decisions are made by politicians for political reasons.

    Sowell goes on to explain the danger of stopping the thinking process at stage one:

    When I was an undergraduate studying economics under Professor Arthur Smithies of Harvard, he asked me in class one day what policy I favored on a particular issue of the times. Since I had strong feelings on that issue, I proceeded to answer him with enthusiasm, explaining what beneficial consequences I expected from the policy I advocated.

    “And then what will happen?” he asked.

    The question caught me off guard. However, as I thought about it, it became clear that the situation I described would lead to other economic consequences, which I then began to consider and to spell out.

    “And what will happen after that?” Professor Smithies asked.

    As I analyzed how the further economic reactions to the policy would unfold, I began to realize that these reactions would lead to consequences much less desirable than those at the first stage, and I began to waver somewhat.

    “And then what will happen?” Smithies persisted.

    By now I was beginning to see that the economic reverberations of the policy I advocated were likely to be pretty disastrous — and, in fact, much worse than the initial situation that it was designed to improve.

    Simple as this little exercise may sound, it goes further than most economic discussions about policies on a wide range of issues. Most thinking stops at stage one.

    We see stage one thinking all the time when looking at government. In Wichita, for example, a favorite question of city council members seeking to justify their support for government intervention such as a tax increment financing (TIF) district or some other form of subsidy is “How much more tax does the building pay now?” Or perhaps “How many jobs will (or did) the project create?”

    These questions, and the answers to them, are examples of stage one thinking. The answers are easily obtained and cited as evidence of the success of the government program.

    But driving by a store or hotel in a TIF district and noticing a building or people working at jobs does not tell the entire story. Using the existence of a building, or the payment of taxes, or jobs created, is stage one thinking, and no more than that.

    Fortunately, there are people who have thought beyond stage one, and some concerning local economic development and TIF districts. And what they’ve found should spur politicians and bureaucrats to find ways to move beyond stage one in their thinking.

    An example are economists Richard F. Dye and David F. Merriman, who have studied tax increment financing extensively. Their article Tax Increment Financing: A Tool for Local Economic Development states in its conclusion:

    TIF districts grow much faster than other areas in their host municipalities. TIF boosters or naive analysts might point to this as evidence of the success of tax increment financing, but they would be wrong. Observing high growth in an area targeted for development is unremarkable.

    So TIFs are good for the favored development that receives the subsidy — not a surprising finding. What about the rest of the city? Continuing from the same study:

    If the use of tax increment financing stimulates economic development, there should be a positive relationship between TIF adoption and overall growth in municipalities. This did not occur. If, on the other hand, TIF merely moves capital around within a municipality, there should be no relationship between TIF adoption and growth. What we find, however, is a negative relationship. Municipalities that use TIF do worse.

    We find evidence that the non-TIF areas of municipalities that use TIF grow no more rapidly, and perhaps more slowly, than similar municipalities that do not use TIF.

    In a different paper (The Effects of Tax Increment Financing on Economic Development), the same economists wrote “We find clear and consistent evidence that municipalities that adopt TIF grow more slowly after adoption than those that do not. … These findings suggest that TIF trades off higher growth in the TIF district for lower growth elsewhere. This hypothesis is bolstered by other empirical findings.”

    Here we have an example of thinking beyond stage one. The results are opposite of what one-stage thinking produces.

    Some city council members are concerned about creating jobs, and are swayed by the promises of developers that their establishments will employ a certain number of workers. Again, this thinking stops at stage one. But others have looked farther, as has Paul F. Byrne of Washburn University. The title of his recent report is Does Tax Increment Financing Deliver on Its Promise of Jobs? The Impact of Tax Increment Financing on Municipal Employment Growth, and in its abstract we find this conclusion regarding the impact of TIF on jobs:

    Increasingly, municipal leaders justify their use of tax increment financing (TIF) by touting its role in improving municipal employment. However, empirical studies on TIF have primarily examined TIF’s impact on property values, ignoring the claim that serves as the primary justification for its use. This article addresses the claim by examining the impact of TIF adoption on municipal employment growth in Illinois, looking for both general impact and impact specific to the type of development supported. Results find no general impact of TIF use on employment. However, findings suggest that TIF districts supporting industrial development may have a positive effect on municipal employment, whereas TIF districts supporting retail development have a negative effect on municipal employment. These results are consistent with industrial TIF districts capturing employment that would have otherwise occurred outside of the adopting municipality and retail TIF districts shifting employment within the municipality to more labor-efficient retailers within the TIF district.

    While this research might be used to support a TIF district for industrial development, TIF in Wichita is primarily used for retail development. And, when thinking beyond stage one, the effect on employment — considering the entire city — is negative.

    It’s hard to think beyond stage one. It requires considering not only the seen, but also the unseen, as Frederic Bastiat taught us in his famous parable of the broken window. But over and over we see how politicians at all levels of government stop thinking at stage one. This is one of the many reasons why we need to return as much decision-making as possible to the private sector, and drastically limit the powers of politicians and governments.

  • Southfork TIF should, again, be rejected

    Tomorrow the Wichita City Council considers the formation of a tax increment financing (TIF) district in south Wichita. Known as the Southfork TIF District, the developer is Wichitan Jay Maxwell. His agent is Tim Austin.

    The TIF proposal has been revised since it was approved by the Wichita city council last December, but rejected by the Sedgwick County Commission in January. Like all TIF districts, this form of government intervention in the economy does more harm than good, and should be rejected.

    TIF is not free money

    Supporters of TIF usually contend that TIF has no cost. This is not the case. This new development will consume fire, police, and other governmental services, but will not contribute its share of property taxes to pay for these. Instead, some portion of the property taxes will be redirected back to the TIF district to benefit the developers. Others will have to pay taxes to make up this deficit, or will have to accept a reduced level of service. See Tax increment financing is not free money.

    There’s also the “but-for” argument: without the benefit of TIF, the project will not be built, and therefore no tax revenue would be received. It’s a powerful argument, if it were really true. But those who seek this type of government funding can always find a way to make their financial projections “prove” the need for TIF money. Governments then take them at their word.

    We might ask ourselves this question: If TIF is truly without cost, why not have more TIF districts? Why not offer TIF for all new development?

    The role of politics

    Maxwell and Austin have some queer ideas regarding the nature of markets and politics. In an email message to supporters of the Southfork TIF, Austin wrote: “There are many underlying political winds working against the Southfork TIF.” In another email message, he wrote: “As I mentioned previously, there are underlying political interests at play that appear to be making this a political matter as opposed to a vote the merits of the TIF, the project, and South Wichita.”

    Austin has it exactly backwards. It is he and Maxwell who are arguing for using the political process to enrich themselves. Those such as myself who oppose government interventions like TIF are arguing against using the political process — against making this a political matter, that is.

    The supporters of government intervention such as TIF often make claims of “market failure.” They claim that the free market system has failed to deliver what they want, so they make appeals to government to intervene. This moves society away from markets and civil society and toward politics and cronyism.

    In reality, markets do quite well in allocating the resources of our economy, despite the claims of many, including historians who should know better. There are those who may feel they’re not getting everything they deserve through the market process, but that’s no reason to introduce the tremendous inefficiencies and distortions that the political process brings with it. In his book How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present, Thomas J. DiLorenzo explained:

    Most historians also uncritically repeat the claim that government subsidies were necessary to building America’s transcontinental railroad industry, steamship industry, steel industry, and other industries. But while clinging to this “market failure” argument, they ignore (or at least are unaware of) the fact that market entrepreneurs performed quite well without government subsidies. They also ignore the fact that the subsidies themselves were a great source of inefficiency and business failure, even though they enriched the direct recipients of the subsidies and advanced the political careers of those who dished them out.

    Political entrepreneurs and their governmental patrons are the real villains of American business history and should be portrayed as such. They are the real robber barons.

    The idea of “market failure” is used by the promoters of this TIF district. They claim that only government — that is, politics — can make things right, at least according to their vision.

    Political entrepreneurs, by the way, are those who seek their profits through government, not markets. Instead of seeking to create products and services that please customers, they seek to please politicians and bureaucrats. This move away from market entrepreneurship to political entrepreneurship is especially sad in Wichita, where we have a proud tradition of market entrepreneurs with famous names: Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, W.C. Coleman, Albert Alexander Hyde, Dan and Frank Carney, Fred C. Koch, and many others.

    Do TIF districts work?

    In deciding whether TIF districts “work” we must come to an agreement of what “work” means. Generally, most supporters of TIF — besides the obvious motivations of the developers who are directly enriched by them — claim increased development and jobs.

    But there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary.

    As far as increased development: Yes, that generally happens within the TIF district. But what about the overall city? The answer is that TIF is harmful.

    Regarding the effect of tax increment financing (TIF) districts on economic development, economists Richard F. Dye and David F. Merriman have studied the issue extensively. Their paper The Effects of Tax Increment Financing on Economic Development bluntly states the overall impact of TIF: “We find clear and consistent evidence that municipalities that adopt TIF grow more slowly after adoption than those that do not.”

    Later in the same paper the authors conclude: “These findings suggest that TIF trades off higher growth in the TIF district for lower growth elsewhere. This hypothesis is bolstered by other empirical findings.” More on their work is at Tax increment financing (TIF) and economic growth.

    Others may support TIF for its purported positive impact on employment. Sure, it’s easy to drive by a TIF district and see people at work. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

    One person who looked at the effect of TIF on employment in the entire city is economist Paul F. Byrne. He concluded this: “Results find no general impact of TIF use on employment. However, findings suggest that TIF districts supporting industrial development may have a positive effect on municipal employment, whereas TIF districts supporting retail development have a negative effect on municipal employment.”

    More on his work is at Does tax increment financing (TIF) deliver on its promise of jobs?

    We must conclude that TIF does not meet the goals of increased development and/or jobs, if we consider the impact on everyone. What we’re left with is the well-known problem that public choice economics — the economics of politics — has described: Concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. It’s the reason why those who seek enrichment at Wichita City Hall and other governments make so many political campaign contributions.

    This particular applicant

    We also need to look at the characteristics of this applicant. The Wichita Business Journal reported this regarding a company Maxwell owned:

    Pixius proposes to repay, over a 10-year period, $1.3 million of a $6.4 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service, according to court documents. The loan was part of a 2002 Farm Bill pilot program that loaned more than $180 million to ISPs to expand Internet service to rural areas.

    “To my memory … Pixius is the only one (to receive a loan) that’s had to file bankruptcy to work out of its situation,” says Claiborn Crain, USDA spokesman.

    When the government helped out Maxwell in the past, it cost taxpayers $5.1 million in a loan discharged in bankruptcy. His company is set apart from other similar companies in that, according to the USDA spokesman, only Maxwell’s declared bankruptcy.

    I suggest that Maxwell has had his turn at the government funding trough. Taxpayers can’t afford to give him another.

  • In Kansas, planning will be captured by special interests

    The government planning process started in south-central Kansas will likely be captured by special interest groups that see ways to benefit from the plan. The public choice school of economics and political science has taught us how special interest groups seek favors from government at enormous costs to society, and we will see this at play again over the next few years.

    This week the Sedgwick County Commission voted to participate in a HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant. While some justified their votes in favor of the plan because “it’s only a plan,” once the planning process begins, special interests plot how to benefit themselves at the expense of the general public. Then once the plan is formed, it’s nearly impossible to revise it, no matter how evident the need.

    An example of how much reverence is given to government plans comes right from the U.S. Supreme Court in the decision Kelo v. New London, in which the Court decided that government could use the power of eminent domain to take one person’s property and transfer it to someone else for the purposes of economic development. In his opinion for the Court, Justice Stevens cited the plan: “The City has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community.” Here we see the importance of the plan and due reverence given to it.

    Stevens followed up, giving even more weight to the plan: “To effectuate this plan, the City has invoked a state statute that specifically authorizes the use of eminent domain to promote economic development. Given the comprehensive character of the plan, the thorough deliberation that preceded its adoption, and the limited scope of our review, it is appropriate for us, as it was in Berman, to resolve the challenges of the individual owners, not on a piecemeal basis, but rather in light of the entire plan. Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment.”

    To Stevens, the fact that the plan was comprehensive was a factor in favor of its upholding. The sustainable communities plan, likewise, is nothing but comprehensive, as described by county manager Bill Buchanan in a letter to commissioners: “[the plan will] consist of multi-jurisdictional planning efforts that integrate housing, land use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure investments in a manner that empowers jurisdictions to consider the interdependent challenges of economic prosperity, social equity, energy use and climate change, and public health and environmental impact.”

    That pretty much covers it all. When you’re charged with promoting economic prosperity, defending earth against climate change, and promoting public health, there is no limit to the types of laws you might consider.

    Who will plan?

    The American Planning Association praised the Court’s notice of the importance of a plan, writing “This decision underscores the importance for a community to have a comprehensive development plan formulated through a democratic planning process with meaningful public participation by everyone.”

    But these plans are rarely by and for the public. Almost always the government planning process is taken over and captured by special interests. We see this in public schools, where the planning and campaigning for new facilities is taken over by architectural and construction firms that see school building as a way to profit. It does not matter to them whether the schools are needed.

    Our highway planning is hijacked by construction firms that stand to benefit, whether or not new roads are actually needed.

    Our planning process for downtown Wichita is run by special interest groups that believe that downtown has a special moral imperative, and another group that sees downtown as just another way to profit at taxpayer expense. Both believe that taxpayers across Wichita, Kansas, and even the entire country must pay to implement their vision. As shown in Kansas and Wichita need pay-to-play laws the special interests that benefit from public spending on downtown make heavy political campaign contributions to nearly all members of the Wichita City Council. They don’t have a political ideology. They contribute only because they know council members will be voting to give them money.

    In Wichita’s last school bond election, 72 percent of the contributions, both in-kind and cash, was given by contractors, architects, engineering firms and others who directly stand to benefit from new school construction, no matter whether schools are actually needed. The firm of Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture led the way in making these contributions. It’s not surprising that this firm was awarded a no-bid contract for plan management services for the bond issue valued at $3.7 million. This firm will undoubtedly earn millions more for those projects on which it serves as architect.

    The special interest groups that benefit from highway construction: They formed a group called Economic Lifelines. It says it was formed to “provide the grassroots support for Comprehensive Transportation Programs in Kansas.” Its motto is “Stimulating economic vitality through leadership in infrastructure development.”

    A look at the membership role, however, lets us know whose economic roots are being stimulated. Membership is stocked with names like AFL-CIO, Foley Equipment Company, Heavy Constructors Association of Greater Kansas City, Kansas Aggregate & Concrete Associations, Kansas Asphalt Pavement Association, Kansas Contractors Association, Kansas Society of Professional Engineers, and PCA South Central Cement Promotion Association. Groups and companies like these have an economic interest in building more roads and highways, whether or not the state actually needs them.

    The planners themselves are a special interest group, too. They need jobs. Like most government bureaucrats, they “profit” from increasing their power and influence, and by expansion of their budgets and staffs. So when Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Skelton asks a professional planner questions about the desirability of planning, what answer does he think he will get? It’s not that the planners are not honest people. But they have a vested economic and professional interest in seeing that we have more government planning, not less.

    And we have evidence that planners watch out for themselves. It is not disputed that this planning grant benefits Regional Economic Area Partnership (REAP). Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau says that John Schlegel, Wichita’s Director of Planning, told him that “acceptance of this grant will take REAP to another level, because right now they are struggling, and this will help plot the course for REAP.” He said that REAP, which is housed at the Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs at Wichita State University, needs to expand its role and authority in order to give it “something to do.”

    We see that REAP is another special interest group seeking to benefit itself. In this case, our best hope is that REAP engages in merely make-work, that the plan it produces is put on a shelf and ignored, and that the only harm to us is the $1.5 million cost of the plan.

    By the way, did you know that Sedgwick County Commissioner Dave Unruh, who voted in favor of the plan that benefits REAP, is a board member of REAP, and may become the next chairman? Special interest groups know how to play the political game, that’s for sure.

  • Federal, United Nations planning imported to Wichita

    Yesterday the Sedgwick County Commission voted to participate in a HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant.

    Republican commissioners Dave Unruh and Jim Skelton joined with Democrat Tim Norton to pass the measure. Below, Paul Soutar of Kansas Watchdog explains why this planning process is a bad idea.

    Local Planning Initiative Has Federal Strings, UN Roots

    by Paul Soutar, Kansas Watchdog

    The Sedgwick County Commission will decide Wednesday whether to give a consortium of South Central Kansas governments and organizations broad control over community planning funded by a federal grant and based on a United Nations agenda.

    The Regional Economic Area Partnership (REAP) Consortium for Sustainable Communities seeks to implement a Regional Plan for Sustainable Development (RPSD) for South Central Kansas.

    REAP’s application for a federal grant said the plan will “provide an overall vision and commitment for sustainable growth in South Central Kansas. The RSPD will provide goals, strategies, and action steps to support that vision. Specifically, that RPSD will create a regional integrated transportation, housing, air quality and water infrastructure plan that aligns federal resources and provides for sustainable development and resources (fiscal, human and capital) to support our economic centers.‘

    Much of the language and goals of sustainable communities grants reflect the goals of the U.N.’s Agenda 21, a global environmental agenda for the 21st century revealed at the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.

    Agenda 21 is a comprehensive framework for global, national and local action aimed at improving environmental equality through massive changes in how resources are consumed and allocated.

    According to Sustainable Development in the 21st century (SD21), a December 2011 UN review of implementation of Agenda 21, “Achieving greater equity requires a significant reduction in consumption by industrialized countries.”

    Continue reading at Local Planning Initiative Has Federal Strings, UN Roots.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday March 30, 2012

    Lee Fang: wrong again. “At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, when most civic-minded Americans were focused on the historic Supreme Court oral arguments about Obamacare, Lee Fang, a left-wing blogger for the liberal Republic Report blog, was posting yet another diatribe attacking Charles and David Koch. As usual, Fang’s piece stretches, distorts, ignores and misstates the facts.” So starts Cleta Mitchell writing in the Daily Caller piece Who’s paying Lee Fang and other left-wing bloggers to attack the Kochs? Readers should not be surprised that Fang is wrong again — it’s become his calling card. The political left doesn’t care, as long as Fang keeps up his attack on Charles and David Koch. Concludes Mitchell: “Fang, of course, gets away with making completely false statements because he sprinkles the Koch name as a negative modifier for every other noun in his blog, and the apparent rule is that there is no concern for facts or truth when a liberal attacks the Kochs. After reading Fang’s drivel, glancing at the Republic Report and United Republic websites and reading about their mission of getting money out of politics and exposing truth and corruption and all of that, here’s my question: Where do these sites get their money? And why don’t they publicly disclose their donors? Fang’s post and these projects are simply part of the massively well-funded liberal attack machine that is designed to vilify the Kochs and intimidate prospective conservative donors into staying on the sidelines. Indeed, Fang is hoping to intimidate all donors to conservative causes and organizations. … Whenever conservatives demonstrate the will and the resources to fight liberal orthodoxy, liberals become hysterical. The left tolerates diversity except when it comes to diversity of opinion. These ongoing attacks on the Kochs are outrageous and won’t stop until liberals have cut off conservative groups’ funding and silenced conservative voices. That isn’t likely to happen.”

    Action on sustainability. Next week the Sedgwick County Commission takes up the issue of whether to participate in a HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant. Coverage of the last discussion the commission had on this matter is at Sedgwick County considers a planning grant. So that citizens may be informed on this issue, Americans for Prosperity, Kansas is holding an informational event on Monday April 2, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at Spangles Restaurant, corner of Kellogg and Broadway. (Uh-oh. If the Kansas Jayhawks make it to the NCAA basketball title game, the television broadcast starts at 8:00 pm.) The meeting is described as follows: “On April 4, 2012 at 9:00 am on the 3rd floor of the Sedgwick County Courthouse, the Sedgwick County Commission will be holding a public hearing to consider approval of Sedgwick County’s participation as the fiscal agent on behalf of the Regional Economic Area Partnership (REAP) Consortium with an ‘in-kind’ commitment of $120,707 to implement a Regional Plan for Sustainable Communities Grant for South Central Kansas. Public comment will be invited. Learn about the Sustainable Communities Plan for South Central Kansas. Find out how you can get involved in this issue as a citizen. Consider testifying before the County Commission. Consider attending the Commission meeting as an interested citizen.” … For more information on this event contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net or 316-312-7335, or Susan Estes, AFP Field Director at sestes@afphq.org or 316-681-4415.

    Economic fascism. From Independent Institute: “On Friday, March 16, President Obama signed an executive order on national defense that amends and updates the executive branch’s sweeping powers over energy, transportation, human resources, and raw materials. ‘It shows plainly that private control of economic life in the United States, to the extent that it survives, exists solely at the president’s pleasure and sufferance,’ writes Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs. ‘Whenever he chooses to put into effect a full-fledged operational fascist economy, controlled from his office, he has the statutory power to do so; all he has to do is to murmur the words ‘national defense’ and give the order.’ … Obama’s executive order sets no new precedent, Higgs notes. It’s just the latest in a string of edicts authorizing central economic planning that dates back at least to the Defense Production Act of 1950, a wartime statute that was never repealed after its passage during the Korean War. It’s also a classic example of how wars create new government powers that don’t go away after peace resumes.”

    Immigration. From LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies: “Is it true that immigration raises the U.S. unemployment rate? Is it true that immigration affects U.S. income distribution? The conventional wisdom says that both of these things are true. However, economist Antony Davies says there is evidence to suggest that they are not. Looking at the data, there is no relationship between the rate of immigration and the unemployment rate, nor is there a relationship between the rate of immigration and income inequality. Further, there is evidence to suggest that immigrants actually create more American jobs.”

  • Wichita new home tax rebate program: The analysis

    A document released by the City of Wichita casts strong doubt on the wisdom of a new home property tax rebate program. The document also lets us know that city staff are not being entirely honest with the citizens of Wichita.

    The new home tax rebate program, according to city documents prepared for the February 14, 2012 city council meeting, provides free Wichita city property taxes to buyers of qualifying new homes: “To promote additional new home construction and new home ownership, the City of Wichita, after extensive coordination and discussion with WABA, is proposing a New HOME (New Home Ownership Made Easy) Program. The program will provide a 5 year rebate of City property taxes for eligible property. To be eligible, property must be in a participating development, with all taxes through 2010 (general and special assessment) current in the development. In addition, to be eligible, the special assessment and general taxes must be paid current at the date of sale and closing of a property.”

    WABA is The Wichita Area Builders Association , a trade association for home builders. The document recently released is a study or analysis of the program dated February 1 from Wichita State University Center for Economic Development and Business Research.

    During the period of the tax rebate program, the study estimates that 787 homes would be built and sold even if there was no rebate program. It is assumed that 1,000 homes would be sold during that period with the rebate program, but that is not certain.

    Following is an excerpt from a table that presents the results of analysis. The benefits and costs are to the City of Wichita General Fund. Benefits are, according to the study, “sales tax revenues, from construction worker spending and construction material purchases, and property tax revenues.” The costs are the lost revenue due to the tax rebates.

                       No Incentives    Incentives
Public Benefits       $2,364,429    $3,004,315
Public Costs                  $0    $2,032,312
Net Public Benefits   $2,364,429      $730,457
Return on Investment      N/A           1.48

    Some, undoubtedly, will focus on the return on investment (ROI) ratio of 1.48 if the tax rebate incentive is used. (There is no such ratio if there are no incentives, as there is no investment.) The study explains the ratio this way: “for every dollar invested, the city will receive the initial dollar plus an additional 48 cents in return.”

    That sounds like a good deal, and the ratios like this that are calculated by CEDBR are often used by the city to justify incentives.

    But there is another way to look at this deal: the net value to the city. In this case, if the city doesn’t offer the incentives, the benefits to the city are $2,364,429. If incentives are used, the benefits are $730,457. This means that if the city does nothing, it is $1,633,972 to the better.

    That’s right: Even though the city has an opportunity to make an investment with a purportedly high ROI, it would be better off, dollar-wise, if it did not make the investment.

    The analysis concludes that with the tax rebate program, there will be more construction jobs. But, caution the study authors: “Please note, the jobs supported in 2012 and 2013 are not net new jobs — they are jobs that already exist. The analysis simply identifies a funding stream for these jobs.”

    In a separate but similar analysis dated March 22, 2012 prepared for Sedgwick County, some limitations of the analysis were itemized, as follows:

    It was beyond the scope of this analysis to account for:

    • Changes in household consumption due to a change in homeownership.
    • The impact of renters who become owners. The program would likely encourage renters to become homebuyers. As these individuals leave the rental market, there may be adverse effects, including falling rental rates.
    • An increase in demand. Although an increase in new home purchases, above existing demand, is likely if incentives are offered, the actual increase in demand has not been quantified.
    • Any increase in demand that offsets future home purchases. It is likely that any increase in new home purchases will simply offset future home purchases as seen in the national Cash for Clunkers program.
    • A change in the price of new homes due to additional supply or higher demand.
    • A fall in home prices, or the associated tax collections, from existing homes. There is a strong likelihood that the increased demand in new homes could lower the value of existing homes.
    • Sunk costs. All costs associated with the creation of a new development, including specials, are viewed as sunk costs. Because they have already occurred, these sunk costs are not included in the analysis.
    • Increased cost of public services. Incentives provided to rural areas could increase public costs as new services are required, including roads, sewer, fire and the like. These increased costs are location specific and not included in the analysis.
    • Cost associated with not providing incentives. The costs associated with a poor new home market have not been analyzed. Without incentives, new home purchases are expected to be lower. This could have negative consequences to builders, developers and taxing entities.

    Some of these problems I presented to the city council in my testimony delivered at the February 14th council meeting. Specifically, I warned council members of the devaluing of existing homes, the “cash for clunkers” effect, the costs of providing city services to homes that aren’t contributing property tax to pay for them, and the question of how much new activity will be induced: “Related to this is the question as to how much new activity this program will induce. Often government takes credit for all economic activity that takes place. This ignores the economic activity that was going to take place naturally — in this case, new homes that are going to be built even without this subsidy program … But, the city has to give up collecting property tax on all these homes — even the ones that would be built anyway.”

    In the case of a new home property tax rebate program for Sedgwick County, the study concludes that the benefit of the program to the county is negative $1,832,294 — a huge cost.

    Missing candor

    Now that the CEDBR study is released, we can see how city staff failed to present the entire economic impact of the tax rebate program to citizens. Here’s what city staff presented to council members, and by extension, all Wichitans:

    “The Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University analyzed the fiscal impact of the proposed New HOME incentive program on the City’s General Fund. The analysis compares the present value cost of incentives to the present value benefits of direct and indirect jobs created and construction expenditures. In this case, a 1.48 to one ratio of benefits-to costs is reported.”

    Every word in this statement is true. But what’s missing is that if the city does nothing, it is $1,633,972 better off.

    City staff had this information. Sources tell me, however, that staff did not present it to council members or the public before the council voted on the program. We are left with this conclusion: City staff presented only the information from the study that promoted the result the city wanted. This is lying by omission.

    This is not the first time city staff has misled the council and the public. Regarding the economic impact of subsidies to the Ambassador Hotel, the city touted a positive cost-benefit ratio to one fund, while ignoring a negative impact to a much larger fund. The difference was a factor of 23 times. See Fact checking the Wichita Ambassador Hotel campaign.

    At some time council members and citizens need to demand that someone be held accountable for this behavior. Demands for accountability are not likely to come from the city council, as many members have shown themselves willing to overlook all facts and reason in order to promote their goals. The editorial board of the Wichita Eagle does the same. It remains important for citizens to perform this watchdog function.

    Wichita Eagle reporting on this matter is at Sedgwick County won’t join property tax rebate for new-home buyers.

  • If government ordered your lunch, would you get what you want?

    Speaking on government making decisions for us, Professor Antony Davies of Duquesne University concludes “Even if it’s benevolent, it fails because it lacks the necessary information to make those decision correctly.”

    The motivation of government officials coupled with their lack of information: These are two reasons why we need to remove as much decision-making as possible from the public sphere. Yet we see the rush to do the opposite. From federal government officials making health care decisions to local officials deciding when, how, and where economic development should take place, the benevolence and knowledge of these officials must be questioned.

    Some believe that if we only had more altruistic leaders or smarter politicians and bureaucrats, all would be well. But there is simply no way that government can replace the collective wisdom of free people voluntarily trading in free markets, their activities coordinated by something so simple as a price system left free from government interference.

    This is the essence of economic freedom as defined at EconomicFreedom.org, the producer of this video. “Economic freedom is the key to greater opportunity and an improved quality of life. It’s the freedom to choose how to produce, sell, and use your own resources, while respecting others’ rights to do the same. … Economic freedom is the key to greater opportunity and an improved quality of life. … While a simple concept, economic freedom is an engine that drives prosperity in the world and is the difference between why some societies thrive while others do not.”