Voice For Liberty

Tag: Politics

  • Kansas Bioscience Authority, protected

    This year the Kansas Bioscience Authority has come under scrutiny for a variety of reasons, including salaries, bonuses, and expenses paid by the authority. Especially troubling is revelation that money we all thought would be invested in Kansas businesses had no such requirement, as can be seen in this video of CEO Tom Thornton. Dion Lefler of the Wichita Eagle has other reporting on the KBA.

    The problem with public-private partnerships like the KBA is that they are, in one sense, expected to operate like a private business, but they don’t have the freedom to operate as such. They also don’t have the same motivations and incentives that guide true private enterprise, namely profit and loss. Instead, we see agencies like KBA reporting their impact in terms of “return on investment.” For example, KBA claims: “Including estimated wages of jobs, that represents a $9.41 return to the state’s economy for each $1 invested by the KBA!” This “investment” by the KBA is nothing like the investments that business and individuals make.

    There’s also the issue of covering for the KBA by leadership of the Kansas Senate, specifically Steve Morris and John Vratil, as Alan Cobb details below.

    Kansas Senate Leadership needs to answer for KBA protection

    By Alan Cobb, Americans for Prosperity

    First the good news.

    Kansas Bioscience Authority (KBA) CEO Tom Thornton resigned under pressure today.

    Much credit goes to Gov. Sam Brownback and especially Sen. Susan Wagle who brought to public attention a slew of conflict of interest and other inappropriate behavior by Thornton and others at the KBA.

    It is of little surprise the Johnson County District Attorney’s office is investigating the KBA. Wagle is totally vindicated and Kansas taxpayers owe her a big debt of gratitude.

    Now the bad news.

    From what we know so far, what’s happened at the KBA is a textbook case of what not to do at a public agency.

    Thornton’s wife was receiving a $107,000 salary as an administrative assistant. The state of Kansas paid for a $1 million life insurance policy for Thornton’s ex-wife. The KBA invested $50 million to venture firms out of state with little oversight. The KBA invested in companies whose executives couldn’t be located by state officials. Many people in the know said an investigation of KBA and Thornton was “long overdue” and the KBA offices in Olathe were a “shrine” to Thornton.

    And this is someone being praised and protected key members of Senate Leadership, President Steve Morris and John Vratil? Just last month Morris said he was 100 percent behind the ousted KBA leader. Morris recently said that the KBA was an “icon for the state.”

    What planet do these guys live on?

    Vratil and Morris sat in the hearings conducted by Wagle, certainly as a show of support for Thornton and for disdain for Wagle and much-needed oversight of KBA.

    The protection given Thornton by Senate leadership even after his resignation today is astonishing.

    The question is what else is being hidden and why are Morris and Vratil so willing to fall on their swords for Thornton and his corrupt behavior?

    That’s the 800-pound rat in the middle of the room that’s eaten some bad Danish cheese.

    Kansans are waiting are waiting for answers.

  • Political contributions disclosure said to be harmful

    An interesting commentary appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled How Donor Disclosure Hurts Democracy: As a candidate, I learned how much potential campaign contributors fear incumbent retribution.

    The author, James L. Huffman, was a candidate for U.S. Senate from Oregon last year. His thesis is that disclosure of the identity of donors to political campaigns discourages people from contributing to challengers, and thereby increases the power of incumbents. So many people or business firms, he argues, have relationships with some government agency, and they don’t want to risk retribution from incumbents who learn contributions have been made to their challengers.

    I agree. It’s a problem not only at the federal level, which is I believe what Huffman’s article focuses on, but also at the state and local level.

    But what about government transparency? A comment left to the article stated “This is the most ridiculous argument against government transparency I have ever heard.” But contributions made to political candidates are not government action. Contributions are made by individuals (or corporations, or unions, etc.) and these are not the acts of government. Transparency is not an issue in this regard.

    One comment included a novel solution: “The solution is to require that all political donations be anonymous. A candidate can not sell influence if he does not know who is buying.” Here the argument is made that the candidate should not know the identity of donors, there presumably being some sort of clearinghouse between the donors and candidates. Donors, of course, could still communicate to the candidate that they made a contribution. And, of course, anyone could falsely claim to have contributed to any politician they wanted to influence.

    For me, political contributions are a form of speech. I see no need for rules that require people to identify themselves in order to exercise their right to speech. Of course, no one is required to listen.

    In the end, the best solution is government — at all levels — without the power to dispense favors and punishment, thereby eliminating the reason why many political contributions are made. A government without this power is likely to be a limited government, run on principle rather than opportunism and expediency.

    How Donor Disclosure Hurts Democracy

    As a candidate, I learned how much potential campaign contributors fear incumbent retribution.
    By James L. Huffman

    In the debates about campaign-finance regulation and the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision of last year, there seems to be widespread agreement on one thing: Public disclosure of political contributions is a good thing. That was my view as well, until I campaigned as the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat in Oregon in 2010.

    The reality is that public disclosure serves the interests of incumbents running for re-election by discouraging support for challengers. Here’s how it works.

    A challenger seeks a contribution from a person known to support candidates of the challenger’s party. The potential supporter responds: “I’m glad you’re running. I agree with you on almost everything. But I can’t support you because I cannot risk getting my business crosswise with the incumbent who is likely to be re-elected.”

    Continue reading at The Wall Street Journal (requires subscription) or at the Hoover Institution (no login required).

  • Latest public pension fund data show taxpayers still on hook for trillions

    By Frank Keegan

    Despite pension fund investment gains in 2010, taxpayers still owe state and municipal workers trillions of dollars for promised benefits no matter how much funds earn during the next 30 years.

    According to data for the 4th Quarter released Thursday by the U.S. Census, cash and security holdings of the top 100 public pension plans gained 7.6 percent in 2009, the fifth consecutive quarterly year-over-year increase.

    Census reported the funds reached “the highest level since the second quarter of 2008.”

    Unfortunately, pension fund managers promise taxpayers and workers they will earn about 8 percent a year every year forever, and a loss of about 28 percent at the bottom of the recession would require a 62.5 percent gain the next year to fulfill their promise.

    Spread across 20 to 30 years, funds would have to gain 9 percent to 11 percent every year to achieve their goal. That means no investment market ever could have another downturn for decades. It would require risk-free investments with the highest returns in history. Good luck.

    Even if fund managers could achieve that, taxpayers during intervening years would have to come up with about $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion every year to fill intermittent funding gaps.

    This Census survey “comprised 89.4 percent of financial activity among such entities.”

    On that basis, the total immediate investment cash and security holdings shortfall is more than $1 trillion just for pensions, which will compound to $16 trillion to $34 trillion in additional hits to taxpayers during 20 to 30 years even if fund investments realize unprecedented gains.

    Guaranteed pension costs continue to grow, and government must put taxpayer money into them every year whether investments produce promised returns or not.

    Politicians’ false promise of retiree health care benefits adds more than $530 billion to the debt as of 2008, according to the Government Accountability Office, because “most of these governments do not have any assets set aside to fund them.”

    Other estimates of the total retirement promise gap range from $1 trillion using old data and official assumptions from the Pew Center on the States, to $3 trillion to $5 trillion based on other accounting standards.

    An update of the Pew study that includes data from the beginning of the recession is due out next week. No matter what the actual number is, experts agree it will continue to grow and require more contributions from spending cuts and tax increases now.

    A report released Thursday by Standard & Poor’s confirms that despite recent gains, “The funded ratios of U.S. states’ pension funds continue decline ….”

    Credit analyst Gabriel Petek wrote in “U.S. States’ Pension Funded Ratios Drift Downward” that “Without exception, reduced pension asset values relative to estimated liabilities is placing upward pressure on the annual required contributions of state governments, compounding what is already a difficult budget cycle for most states.”

    S&P focuses on whether states will be able to pay their debts, not whether taxpayers can bleed more for the hidden tab politicians have run up. The report says:

    • Pension liabilities and current contributions are not presently jeopardizing any state’s capacity to meet its debt service obligations;
    • There is general upward pressure on recommended contributions (actuarially determined) to pension funds due to the phasing-in of market losses in 2008;
    • Pension reform efforts could help contain the rate at which some estimated long-term pension liabilities are growing. The significance of near-term fiscal relief generated from these reforms in most cases remains to be seen; and,
    • Early indications in 2011 suggest that deteriorating pension funded ratios — when coupled with a lack of full actuarial contributions — could serve as a source of potential credit pressure for some states.”

    That all adds up to major service cuts and tax increases now to make sure public workers get their pension benefits and bondholders get their principal and interest payments.

    With states facing billions in operating deficits despite revenue higher than pre-recession levels, coming up with the money they must invest now to avoid certain catastrophe in the future is going to be tough.

    Especially on beleaguered taxpayers who now know state government puts them last on the priority list behind public workers and bondholders.

    Frank Keegan is a national editor for The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, watchdog.org and statehousenewsonline.com. Any disgusted public employee, journalist, activist organization or citizen watchdog who wants help exposing government waste, fraud and abuse may contact him at: frank.keegan@franklincenterhq.org.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Tuesday March 29, 2011

    Follow-up to Koch profile. A few pieces have provided amplification and commentary on the Weekly Standard profile of Charles and David Koch, notably Politico and Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post. … Has a secret conspiracy been uncovered by Politico? Groups identified as lined up against the Kochs include a non-profit group titled Brave New Films, Greenpeace, Public Citizen, Common Cause, Ruckus Society, AFSCME (an arm of AFL-CIO), Service Employees International Union, and Center for American Progress with its attack blog ThinkProgress. Asks Post’s Rubin: “[a conspiracy] not of the Kochs but of the left-leaning groups that have mounted a campaign against them. … In other words, groups that purport to be nonpartisan are actually involved in a coordinated effort to smear the Kochs.” … Rubin notes the commonality shared between many of these groups: they receive millions from “foundations controlled by or linked to Soros,” referring to left-wing cause financier and anti-capitalist George Soros. … And are the Koch donations overly generous? Writes Rubin: “Left unsaid in all of this is the degree to which the Kochs’ political giving has been exaggerated. How much do they give? Over the last 20 years, about $11 million. Not chump change for you and me, but kind of stingy actually for billionaires whom the left would have us believe are taking over the American political system. By way of comparison, Duke Energy — the third-largest nuclear power plant operator — has been a major donor to Democrats, including the president. That would be the same Duke Energy that just forked over a $10 million line of credit for a single purpose — the 2101 Democratic Convention. Just the sort of thing Common Cause would be concerned about. After the next conference call with the other members of the Soros gang, I’m sure it’ll get right on it.” … Both articles are worth reading.

    The decline of Detroit: a lesson for Wichita? William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal: “Most Americans did not need to be told that Detroit is in a bad way, and has been for some time. Americans know all about white flight, greedy unions and arrogant auto executives. The recent census numbers, however, put an exclamation mark on a cold fact: A once-great American city today repels people of talent and ambition.” How did this happen? McGurn quotes Rev. Robert A. Sirico: “Detroit is a classic example of how a culture that was legendary for enterprise and innovation was slowly eroded by toxic politicization from the 1960s on.” … Later McGurn asks “What happened to this Detroit? In many ways the answer is liberal politics and expanding government.” … Could this happen to Wichita? Our population is not declining. But Wichita has been said to be more dependent on one industry (aircraft manufacturing) than Detroit was on automobile manufacturing. And Wichita government is becoming more liberal — notwithstanding the protests of several self-styled conservative city council members who will soon be leaving office. Increasingly business looks to city hall rather than markets for inspiration and financing. Our mayor, city council members, and bureaucrats want more “tools in the toolbox” for intervening in the economy. … Yes, the devastation seen in Detroit could happen here.

    Moran to vote “no” on debt ceiling. United States Senator Jerry Moran, a newly-elected Kansas Republican, has informed President Obama that he won’t vote for an increase in the national debt ceiling. Wrote Moran: “Americans are looking for leadership in Washington to confront the problems of today, not push them off on future generations. To date, you have provided little or no leadership on what I believe to be the most important issue facing our nation — our national debt. With no indication that your willingness to lead will change, I want to inform you I will vote “no” on your request to raise the debt ceiling.” The entire letter from Moran is at I will vote “No.”

    Golden geese on the move. Thomas Sowell: “The latest published data from the 2010 census show how people are moving from place to place within the United States. In general, people are voting with their feet against places where the liberal, welfare-state policies favored by the intelligentsia are most deeply entrenched.” Sowell notes that blacks, especially those young and educated, are moving to the South and suburbs. “Among blacks who moved, the proportions who were in their prime — from 20 to 40 years of age — were greater than in the black population at large, and college degrees were more common among them than in the black population at large. In short, with blacks, as with other racial or ethnic groups, those with better prospects are leaving the states that are repelling their most productive citizens in general with liberal policies.” Detroit, he writes is “the most striking example of a once-thriving city ruined by years of liberal social policies.” Finally, a lesson for all states, including Kansas: “Treating businesses and affluent people as prey, rather than assets, often pays off politically in the short run — and elections are held in the short run. Killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy.” (Mass Migration Of America’s Golden Geese.) The migration statistics concerning Kansas are not favorable, although some are trending in a better direction.

    Legislators will have more access to SRS case files. Kansas Health Institute News Service reports” “Parents whose children have become state wards now have the option of signing a one-page form that gives state legislators unrestricted access to information in their family’s case file.” Previously legislators had access to the information, but “social workers decided what information from the file would be shared. And legislators were not given documents or copies from the files but verbal briefings.” Some are concerned that information harmful to children will be made public.

    Wichita unemployment rate improving. Writes Friends University finance professor and Mammon Among Friends blogger, Malcolm Harris, as saying, “‘We’re seeing a trend, and that trend is in the right direction’…But, he cautioned, ‘we’ve got a long way to go.’” More at Wichita’s Unemployment Rate Falls Compared to Last Year.

    Government planners vs. individuals. Another reading from Economics for Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School by Gene Callahan. The topic is individuals acting in markets vs. government planning: Economics does not hold that the desires of the consumers are pure or virtuous. It does illustrate that the market process is the only way to approximately gauge those desires. All other systems must attempt to impose the rulers’ values on the ruled. Those who plan on doing the imposing have a very high regard for their own judgment, and a very low regard for that of the rest of us. To paraphrase the economist G.L.S. Shackle, the man who would plan for others is something more than human; the planned man, something less. … [Ludwig von] Mises describes those who would coercively replace the value judgments of their fellow men by their own value judgments: [They] are driven by the dictatorial complex. They want to deal with their fellow men in the way an engineer deals with the materials out of which he builds houses, bridges, and machines. They want to substitute “social engineering” for the actions of their fellow citizens and their own unique all-comprehensive plan for the plans of all other people. They see themselves in the role of the dictator — the duce, the Führer, the production tsar — in whose hands all other specimens of mankind are merely pawns. If they refer to society as an acting agent, they mean themselves. If they say that conscious action of society is to be substituted for the prevailing anarchy of individualism, they mean their own consciousness alone and not that of anybody else. (The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science)

  • Weekly Standard: The left’s obsession with the Koch brothers

    Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard has written a profile of Charles and David Koch and Koch Industries, focusing on politics and the attacks by the political Left.

    A key passage in the story explains what those who believe in economic freedom have known all along: If Charles and David Koch really wanted to make a lot of money for themselves, they would act like most corporations: seek fortune through government intervention, not through competition in free markets:

    The second charge was that the Kochs’ talk about free markets was merely cover for economic self-interest. But if that were true, why doesn’t every major corporation full-throatedly support limited government? Are we really to believe that Koch Industries is the only self-interested corporation in America? The reality, of course, is that an easier way to advance corporate self-interest is the one taken by most giant companies: securing monopolies, bailouts, tariffs, subsidies — the opposite of free enterprise. “It’d be much safer economically to sit on the sidelines or curry favor with the Obama administration,” said Richard Fink.

    It was impossible for the liberal activists to acknowledge that libertarians might actually operate from conviction. Charles and David believed in low taxes, less spending, and limited regulation not because those policies helped them but because they helped everybody. “If I wanted to enhance my riches,” said David, “why do I give away almost all my money?”

    We’ve just seen the results of how an “aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting” can succeed, as we’ve learned that General Electric has been successful in avoiding income tax liability. GE, whose chief executive is said to be close to President Obama, also invests in industries like wind power that receive government subsidy, without regard for the underlying economic benefit of these investments.

    But Charles and David Koch believe that economic freedom and free markets are the best way to generate prosperity for everyone, and the Weekly Standard article shows they have worked for decades to promote this message.

    What may really gall liberals is that while believing that a powerful and expansive government is good for the country, they have created a complicated machine that a politically-favored company like GE can exploit for huge profits, all without creating anything that consumers value. Charles Koch calls for an end to this, as he recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “Government spending on business only aggravates the problem. Too many businesses have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay. Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.”

    The political Left just can’t believe that anyone would write that and really mean it.

    The Paranoid Style in Liberal Politics

    The left’s obsession with the Koch brothers
    By Matthew Continetti

    … For decades David and Charles have run Koch Industries, an energy and manufacturing conglomerate that employs around 50,000 people in the United States and another 20,000 in 59 other countries. Depending on the year, Koch Industries is either the first- or second-largest privately held company in America — it alternates in the top spot with Cargill, the agricultural giant — with about $100 billion in revenues. David and Charles are worth around $22 billion each. Combine their wealth and you have the third-largest fortune in America after Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Like most billionaires, the brothers spend a lot of time giving their money away: to medical and scientific research, to educational programs, to cultural institutions, and to public policy research and activism.

    That last part has caught the attention of the left’s scouring eye. For unlike many billionaires, the Koch brothers espouse classical liberal economics: They advocate lower taxes, less government spending, fewer regulations, and limited government. “Society as a whole benefits from greater economic freedom,” Charles wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. Judging by the results of the 2010 elections, there are millions of Americans who agree with him.

    Over the years the Kochs have flown beneath the radar, not seeking publicity and receiving little. But then the crash of 2008 arrived, and the bailouts, and the election of Barack Obama, and pretty soon the whole country was engaged in one loud, colossal, rollicking, emotional argument over the size, scope, and solvency of the federal government. Without warning, folks were springing up, dressing in colonial garb, talking about the Constitution, calling for a Tea Party. Some of them even joined a group called Americans for Prosperity — which the Kochs helped found and partly fund.

    Continue reading at the Weekly Standard.

  • Wichita Eagle editorial page: arm of Democratic Party?

    Today’s letters section of the Wichita Eagle carries a letter from the executive director of the Sedgwick County Democratic Party promoting an event that will poke fun at Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

    A letter to the editor of any newspaper that discusses public policy, including Kobach’s agenda, is relevant. But this letter is a promotion — an advertisement — for a partisan political party event. It’s not billed as a fundraiser, but it has all the characteristics of one, including tickets selling for as much as $100.

    Printing letters like this harms the image of Eagle, if it wishes to retain credibility as a neutral arbitrator of public opinion and policy.

  • The Left’s ‘obsession with all things Koch’

    Yesterday John H. Hinderaker of Powerline wrote another article about the political Left’s obsession with Charles and David Koch and Koch Industries. It’s a lengthy piece and worth reading, but because it is long, I will try to summarize.

    The Center for American Progress and its website ThinkProgress are fronts for the Obama Administration and are “lavishly funded by George Soros and several other left-wing billionaires.”

    The Center for American Progress, through ThinkProgress, “has carried on a bizarre vendetta against Charles and David Koch and their company, Koch Industries.” The Kochs are active in politics on the conservative/libertarian side.

    Having an “obsession with all things Koch,” ThinkProgress has attacked freshman U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, who represents the strongly Republican Kansas fourth congressional district where Koch Industries’ Wichita headquarters is located.

    Therefore, the man-bites-dog story: “Republicans support Republican candidate in Republican district!”

    Other things we learn: ThinkProgress charges that Pompeo “made his fortune off of a Koch backed company.” The facts are that Koch Venture Capital invested in a company that Pompeo and some partners founded to the amount of two percent.

    ThinkProgress has also made an issue of campaign contributions by Koch Industries, writing “In fact, Koch Industries even ranked at top of Pompeo’s campaign contribution list, outpacing the second top contributor by $60,000.” This is true, but when we look at data at OpenSecrets.org, we can see that of the $79,500 contributed, $10,000 came a Koch Industries political action committee (PAC). The balance of this amount came from a large number of people employed by Koch Industries.

    The left-wing mob behavior is noted in the story: “One of the curious media phenomena of our time is the synergy between the fever swamp of left-wing web sites, often closely affiliated with the Democratic Party and supported by far-left billionaires, and the supposedly mainstream media. Repeatedly, ‘stories’ that begin in the fever swamp attain a sort of respectability a few days later when they are picked up by the New York Times or the Washington Post, and often are disseminated from there to liberal newspapers around the country. This is a case in point. On March 20, the Washington Post, evidently inspired by Think Progress, laundered that site’s attack on Pompeo into slightly more respectable form, and brought it into polite company.”

    (The story referred to is GOP freshman Pompeo turned to Koch for money for business, then politics.)

    The recent congressional campaign between Pompeo and Raj Goyle is mentioned, and it is revealed that the Center for American Progress — the parent of ThinkProgress, the site attacking Pompeo and Koch Industries — contributed $8,300 to the Goyle campaign. By the way, according to OpenSecrets, Goyle raised much more money for his campaign from out-of-state donors than from people in Kansas.

    Powerline also criticizes the Post story’s usage of Kansas University political science professor Burdett A. “Bird” Loomis as a source without identifying Loomis as a “Democratic Party partisan and a virulent enemy of Republicans in general and the Kochs in particular” and having written an “anti-Koch op-ed.” (The op-ed, from the Wichita Eagle, doesn’t outright criticize Koch, but you can tell Loomis doesn’t care for the Kochs and their advocacy of economic freedom.)

    Powerline also notes on Loomis’ Facebook page his affinity for left-leaning politicians like Jim Ward, Laura Kelly, and Goyle, and also for the left-wing attack blog “Dome on the Range,” which exists only to poke fun at Republicans.

    Summarizing — and from my observations Hinderaker is correct:

    What we see here is incest to the third degree. The disgusting morass of left-wing blogs, funded by far-left billionaires like George Soros, spew up an endless stream of slimy attacks on mainstream citizens, like Charles and David Koch, and mainstream politicians, like Mike Pompeo. Democratic Party outlets that are generally presumed to be more respectable, like the New York Times and the Washington Post, watch the dirt flow by and periodically, when they see something promising, pluck it out of the swamp and take it mainstream in order to benefit their party. The Post isn’t as bad as some — I have referred to it as the most respectable voice of the Democratic Party — but when it follows this disgusting practice, plucking out the vilest unsubstantiated smear and promoting it for purely partisan purposes, it is hard to distinguish the Post from the most disreputable far-left rags, like ThinkProgress and the New York Times.

    Anatomy of a Smear

    By John H. Hinderaker

    The Center for American Progress is generally regarded as a front for the Obama administration. Its President and CEO is John Podesta, formerly Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff and the chairman of Barack Obama’s transition team. CAP is lavishly funded by George Soros and several other left-wing billionaires. It runs, among other things, a web site called Think Progress, which cranks out a steady stream of slimy hit pieces for the benefit of the Obama administration and the far left.

    Soros apparently believes that only left-wing billionaires should be able to participate in public discourse, so his Center for American Progress, through its web site, has carried on a bizarre vendetta against Charles and David Koch and their company, Koch Industries. The Kochs are two of the very few billionaires who are active in politics on the conservative/libertarian side, a phenomenon that apparently drives left-wing billionaires wild with rage. I’m not sure why; maybe they think the Kochs are traitors to their class. In any event,Think Progress has stalked the Koch brothers with video cameras and produced one false, over-the-top attack on the Kochs after another, some of which we have had fun dissecting here.

    Continue reading at Powerline.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Tuesday March 22, 2011

    Progressive government. Stephen Goldsmith in The Wall Street Journal: “Across the country, the interests of organized labor, elected officials and taxpayers are colliding over wages, work rules and the astronomical costs of retiree pensions and health care. As important as these specific issues are to resolve, there is another, more fundamental problem causing so many Americans to lose faith in their government: It is not government unions per se but progressive government itself — long celebrated in Wisconsin, New York and elsewhere — that no longer produces progressive results.” … Goldsmith is deputy mayor of New York City. “In the early 20th century, the progressives championed a rule-based approach to public-sector management that was a big step forward from the cronyism and corruption of Tammany Hall. Today, however, the very rules that once enhanced accountability, transparency and efficiency now stifle the creativity of public-sector workers and reduce the ability of public investments to create opportunities for citizens — outcomes precisely the opposite of those intended by Progressive Era reformers.”

    Identity theft possible. Michael Schwanke of KWCH Television finds a large dumpster full of employee records in an alley behind a Wichita business. These records could be used to commit identity theft and fraud. While many people are aware of the threat of using a personal computer regard regarding identity theft, most people use anti-virus and other security software, and take steps like using good passwords when creating online accounts. These steps are under the control of each person. But the companies we transact with — including your employer and the government — may not be as careful with your data as you are. There’s not much individuals can do about this.

    Is the automobile this bad? From a letter in today’s Wichita Eagle: “Perhaps it would be helpful if we all spent five minutes imagining the car in our garage is a murderer worse than Osama bin Laden, a disaster worse than the Tohoku earthquake, a polluter worse than coal, a drug more addictive than crack. It doesn’t have to be this way. We have allowed real-estate developers to zone our lives so there is quite literally nothing for us to walk to. Maybe those five minutes of imagining will move some of us to demand ultralight commercial development in our suburban residential deserts.” … Putting aside the wild and unsubstantiated claims the writer makes, the automobile gives us mobility, which is priceless. In his recent book Gridlock: why we’re stuck in traffic and what to do about it, Randal O’Toole explains the benefits of mobility: “The benefits of mobility are huge and undeniable. The most tangible benefit is to our personal incomes. Increased travel speeds allow people to reach more potential jobs in a given commute time. Research in France found that, for every 10 percent increase in travel speeds, the pool of workers available to employers increased by 15 percent. This gives employers access to more highly skilled workers, which in turn increases worker productivity by 3 percent. Similarly, research in California has found that doubling the distance workers can commute to work increases productivity by 25 percent. … Mobility also reduces our consumer costs and gives us access to a wider diversity of consumer goods. … Thanks to our mobility, most Americans enjoy much better housing than they did a century ago and better than most other people in the world today. Mobility not only increases the income available for housing; it allows us to reach areas where housing, and the land it requires, is more affordable. The most intangible benefit of mobility may be the thing many Americans say they value most: freedom.”

    Voters Boot Mayoral Marauder. From CommonSense with Paul Jacob: “On March 15, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez got the boot, with almost nine out of ten county voters (88 percent) agreeing to get rid of him. The Miami Herald calls the event ‘the largest recall of a local politician in U.S. history.’ Brandon Holmes of Citizens in Charge calls it ‘the most significant recall election since California ousted former governor Gray Davis in 2003.’ Alvarez was shown the door for larding aides with hefty pay raises (from $185,484 to $206,783, for his chief of staff) and increasing the salaries of other county employees while hiking property taxes 18 percent in the name of preventing layoffs. Meanwhile, the mayor tooled around town in a taxpayer-subsidized BMW Gran Turismo.” Wall Street Journal reporting notes: “What really seems to have sent the recall into nearly unanimous territory is that the mayor and his government used both taxpayer and union funds to finance their fight to stay in office.” Concluding, the Journal writes: “Union protesters in Madison, Wisconsin have commanded the headlines of late, but what happened in Miami on Tuesday is a reminder that the taxpayer revolt against elected officials who treat voters like cash dispensers is alive and well. Every Governor and Member of Congress should be warned.”

    Public union issues. William F. Shughart of the Independent Institute writing in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Public employee wages and benefits are typically not the result of simple collective bargaining. They are the result of the public employee unions’ political and lobbying activities — which, in many states, are financed with union dues employees are forced to pay as a condition of employment. … Thus, the unions use their power and purse to elect politicians willing to grant them more power – and use that power to extract financial concessions from the same politicians. It’s been an ongoing vicious cycle in some states for many years, with the ultimate bill-payer — the taxpayer — the odd man out.” The author notes that we don’t have the choice but to consume and pay for public services provided by public employee unions. For private sector companies and their unions, consumers have choice, which is a regulating factor.

    The naysayers’ plan. Murray N. Rothbard in defense of the naysayers who are criticized because they have no plan, except for relying on the ingenuity of free people trading freely in markets. From For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto: The libertarian who wants to replace government by private enterprises in the above areas is thus treated in the same way as he would be if the government had, for various reasons, been supplying shoes as a tax-financed monopoly from time immemorial. If the government and only the government had had a monopoly of the shoe manufacturing and retailing business, how would most of the public treat the libertarian who now came along to advocate that the government get out of the shoe business and throw it open to private enterprise? He would undoubtedly be treated as follows: people would cry, “How could you? You are opposed to the public, and to poor people, wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes to the public if the government got out of the business? Tell us that! Be constructive! It’s easy to be negative and smart-alecky about government; but tell us who would supply shoes? Which people? How many shoe stores would be available in each city and town? How would the shoe firms be capitalized? How many brands would there be? What material would they use? What lasts? What would be the pricing arrangements for shoes? Wouldn’t regulation of the shoe industry be needed to see to it that the product is sound? And who would supply the poor with shoes? Suppose a poor person didn’t have the money to buy a pair?” These questions, ridiculous as they seem to be and are with regard to the shoe business, are just as absurd when applied to the libertarian who advocates a free market in fire, police, postal service, or any other government operation. The point is that the advocate of a free market in anything cannot provide a “constructive” blueprint of such a market in advance. The essence and the glory of the free market is that individual firms and businesses, competing on the market, provide an ever-changing orchestration of efficient and progressive goods and services: continually improving products and markets, advancing technology, cutting costs, and meeting changing consumer demands as swiftly and as efficiently as possible.”

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Sunday March 13, 2011

    Wichita city council this week. There is no meeting of the Wichita City Council this week, as most members will be attending a meeting of the National League of Cities in Washington, DC. These conferences are designed to help council members be more effective. But for three of the council members that will be attending, their future service on the council is measured in days, not years. These three lame duck members — Sue Schlapp, Paul Gray, and Roger Smith — will be leaving the council in April when their terms end. Their participation in this conference, at taxpayer expense, is nothing more than a junket — for lame ducks.

    How attitudes can differ. At a recent forum of city council candidates, one candidate mentioned the five or six police officers conducting security screening of visitors seeking to enter Wichita city hall, recognizing that this doesn’t create a welcoming atmosphere for citizens. Vice Mayor Jeff Longwell said he thought the officers are “accommodating and welcoming.” It should be noted that Longwell carries a card that allows him to effortlessly enter city hall through turnstiles that bypass the screening that citizens endure. Further, it’s natural that the police officers are deferential to Longwell, just as most employees are to their bosses. … This attitude of Longwell is an example of just how removed elected officials can be from the citizens — and reality, too. Coupled with the closing of the city hall parking garage to citizens and the junket for lame ducks described above, the people of Wichita sense city hall elected officials and bureaucrats becoming increasingly removed from the concerns of the average person.

    Private property and the price system. In The Science of Success, Charles Koch succinctly explains the importance of private property and prices to market economies and prosperity, how government planning can’t benefit from these factors, and the tragedy of the commons: “Private property is essential for both a market economy and prosperity. There cannot be a market economy without private property, and a society without private property cannot have prosperity. To ensure ongoing innovation in satisfying people’s needs, there must be a robust and evolving system of private property rights. Without a market system based on private property, no one can know how to effectively allocate resources. This is because they lack the information that comes from market prices. Those prices depend on voluntary exchanges by owners of private property. Prices and the resulting profit and loss guide entrepreneurs toward satisfying the needs of consumers. Through this system, consumers are able to direct entrepreneurs in efficiently allocating resources through knowledge and incentives in a way no central authority can. … The biggest problems in society have occurred in those areas thought to be best controlled in common: the atmosphere, bodies of water, air, streets, the body politic and human virtue. They all reflect aspects of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and function much better when methods are devised to give them characteristics of private property.”

    Toward a free market in education. From The Objective Standard: “More and more Americans are coming to recognize the superiority of private schools over government-run or ‘public’ schools. Accordingly, many Americans are looking for ways to transform our government-laden education system into a thriving free market. As the laws of economics dictate, and as the better economists have demonstrated, under a free market the quality of education would soar, the range of options would expand, competition would abound, and prices would plummet. The question is: How do we get there from here?” Read more at Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits?. … This week in Kansas a committee will hold a hearing on HB 2367, known as the Kansas Education Liberty Act. This bill would implement a system of tax credits to support school choice, much like explained in the article.

    Are lottery tickets like a state-owned casino? This week a committee in the Kansas House of Representatives will hear testimony regarding HB 2340, which would, according to its fiscal note, “exempt from the statewide smoking ban any bar that is authorized to sell lottery tickets under the Kansas Lottery Act.” The reasoning is that since the statewide smoking ban doesn’t apply to casinos because it would lessen revenue flowing to the state from gaming, the state ought to allow smoking where lottery tickets are sold, as they too generate revenue for the state.

    Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve. This month’s meeting of the Wichita chapter of Americans for Prosperity, Kansas features a DVD presentation from the Ludwig von Mises Institute titled “Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve.” About the presentation: “Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson understood “The Monster.” But to most Americans today, Federal Reserve is just a name on the dollar bill. They have no idea of what the central bank does to the economy, or to their own economic lives; of how and why it was founded and operates; or of the sound money and banking that could end the statism, inflation, and business cycles that the Fed generates.” The event is Monday (March 14) at 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Lionel D. Alford Library located at 3447 S. Meridian in Wichita. The library is just north of the I-235 exit on Meridian. 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.

    Wichita-area legislators to meet public. Saturday (March 19th) members of the South-Central Kansas Legislative Delegation will meet with the public. The meeting will be at Derby City Hall, 611 Mulberry Road (click for map), starting at 9:00 am. Generally these meetings last for two hours. Then on April 23 — right before the “wrap-up session” — there will be another meeting at the Wichita State University Hughes Metropolitan Complex, 5015 E. 29th Street (at Oliver).

    Pompeo to meet with public. If you don’t get your fill of politics for the day after the meeting with state legislators, come meet with United States Representative Mike Pompeo, who is just completing two months in office. Pompeo will be holding a town hall meeting at Maize City Hall, 10100 W. Grady (click for map) starting at 1:00 pm on Saturday March 19th.

    Losing the brains race. Veronique de Rugy writing in Reason: “In November the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its Program for International Student Assessment scores, measuring educational achievement in 65 countries. The results are depressingly familiar: While students in many developed nations have been learning more and more over time, American 15-year-olds are stuck in the middle of the pack in many fundamental areas, including reading and math. Yet the United States is near the top in education spending.” … A solution is to introduce competition through markets in education: “Because of the lack of competition in the K–12 education system. Schooling in the United States is still based largely on residency; students remain tied to the neighborhood school regardless of how bad its performance may be. … With no need to convince students and parents to stay, schools in most districts lack the incentive to serve student needs or differentiate their product. To make matters worse, this lack of competition continues at the school level, where teacher hiring and firing decisions are stubbornly divorced from student performance, tied instead to funding levels and tenure.” The author notes that wealthy families already have school choice, as they can afford private schools or can afford to move to areas with public schools they think are better than the schools in most urban districts.

    Teachers unions explained. A supporter of the teachers unions is questioned about her belief that the unions need more money and power. In Kansas, the teachers union in the form of Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) and its affiliates consistently opposes any attempt at reform.