Does government support for the arts cause economic growth? Governor Blunt seems to think so:

"Public support of the arts should be driven less by ranking and more by just trying to help local organizations enrich people’s lives and create the sort of cultural amenities that are important in attracting knowledge-based workers and fostering economic development,”GOV. MATT BLUNT

Many economists disagree. Tyler Cowen writes that studies of the economic impact of arts funding "treat arts expenditures as creating value out of nothing." And David Galenson says that government funding for arts centers can actually drive independent businesses out of an area as property values rise:

Like a professional sports team, the value of a cultural center is in adding status to a city. Often, the only people who directly profit are real estate developers, Galenson says.

Funding for the arts is great for the people who get the money, but it’s not a formula to turn tax dollars into economic growth.

Carl Bearden writes about scholarships and higher education in the South East Missourian:

I have long believed that it is the students who are our future, and the institutions they choose to attend are the vessels for preparing them for that future. We can and should support both.

Bearden explains that students can use Missouri’s "Gallagher" and "Guarantee" scholarships to attend public or private colleges.

Those scholarships allow students to choose schools that meet their specific needs. And contrary to the critics who warn that vouchers will hurt the public schools, we haven’t seen a mass exodus from the University of Missouri. Why not expand the scholarship programs to include students in grades K-12? Missouri could follow Utah’s lead and bring parental choice to students in the grades before college.

A new controversy regarding the ownership of Allen Cab Co. has jogged my memories about one of the most unnecessarily, overly regulated industries in St. Louis – taxi cabs.  Part of the reason the regulation is unnecesary is that St. Louisans use cabs less than any other city in Western civilization.  Despite the burdensome regulations of the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission, it is genuinely an improvement over the regulatory situation just a few years ago when both the City and County had their own similar but separate regulations and cabs had to be licensed in one or the other and could not pick up fares in both.  At least now, most cabs can pick up someone in Clayton and take them downtown and then get another fare from downtown back out to the County. 

The Airport has been the hotbed of taxi controversies in our area.  Back in the 90’s, the airport cab regulation was so stringent that no new drivers had an opportunity to work there.  It was closed system that worked great if you had the goldmine, aka a license.  Not surprisingly, a new company sued and won.   After that, around 2000, anyone was allowed to become an airport cab, altough that just allows you to work from the airport to hotels, etc., and not the reverse, insane as that sounds.  Soon enough, there were so many new drivers at the airport that the older ones began coming to County Council meetings and demanding new regulations.  I would have preferred time and the free market be allowed to sort it out, but soon enough the State created this unified commission and the County and City went with that. 

I don’t mean to say that cabs should have no regulations.  I understand having cabs inspected and making sure cabbies have valid driver’s licenses.  I am less sure about dress codes and I can’t believe the rules still forbid airport cabs from picking up people downtown and taking them to the airport after they have just dropped somone off at the same hotel.  I wish the drivers with Allen Cab all the best.  I would feel more confident in their future if they had the free market to count on and not some regulatory commission.

A few days ago, my colleague David Stokes blogged about the ongoing struggle between Missouri and Illinois lawmakers to reach a compromise on plans to build an additional bridge of some sort across the Mississippi. He argued that either proposed deal would be good for both states, and wondered why it was so difficult for the two sides to hash something out, as both had much to gain and little to lose from either proposal. Since his posting, the situation has continued to deterioriate.

The state of Missouri, despite being offered a bridge that would be essentially free, continues to stall the project for reasons largely undefined. A recent article by Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan attempts to shed some light on the situation, arguing that:

"It’s easy to see why Gov. Matt Blunt would be excited about a private toll bridge. Privatize whatever you can. It’s a philosophy that can carry a guy a long way in Republican circles these days. But what about the other Missouri officials? Why would they support such a plan? After all, most of them have spouted off about regionalism for years. Now they want to stick it to the people of Illinois. They’re probably frightened. Rahn is autonomous. He answers to nobody. If officials go against Rahn, he can retaliate. No projects in their jurisdictions."

While Mr. McClellan’s ad hominem attack against Gov. Blunt and privatization is a little silly, he’s right about petty Missouri politics once again derailing what would otherwise be an excellent joint project for the two states, with significant benefits for both at little cost to Missouri. The state and particularly the city of St. Louis will be forever doomed to mediocrity if it can’t leave the amatuerish politics behind for a while and focus on what’s truly good for its citizens, the selfish concerns of it’s politicians be damned.

Via Andrew Sullivan, here is the classic book, The Road to Serfdom, done starkly and succinctly as a series of eighteen cartoons.  I believe Mr. Hayek would approve.

The state is currently considering a proposal to renew and extend the "Quality Jobs Act." This program provides tax incentives for businesses to create jobs in Missouri that pay above the county average and provide at least partial health care coverage. According to the Kansas City Star:

"The Economic Development Department credits the program with creating 12,438 jobs in Missouri in less than two years."

These are quality jobs that pay living wages, the kind of jobs Missouri so desparately needs. The proposal would increase the spending on these tax credits from 12 to 24 million, and extend the life of the program an additional ten years to 2028 from 2018. This program benefits businesses by allowing them to keep the withholding taxes from their employees paychecks. A recent amendment to the program would prohibit businesses knowingly employing illegal immigrants from receiving the credits. This change has drawn some fire because it would allegedly offer a financial incentive for businesses to discriminate against Missouri workers who, despite being here legally, might nonetheless look and sound like illegal aliens. This objection is rubbish.

The proposal, as is, does nothing to punish those who are already employing an illegal workforce, and as such would not adversly affect those businesses.  Rather, it offers a positive incentive for those companies to employ legal workers and to pay them well. The key phrase here is "knowingly employing illegals." Those companies who hired a worker and reasonably believed that person to be here legally would not be punished if that worker later turned out to in fact be illegal. This approach to managing the state’s economy-offering positive incentives for desired behaviors without directly meddling in the labor market-is exactly what is needed for a healthy balance between the concerns of Missouri’s businesses and Missouri’s legal workers. On those grounds, the "Quality Jobs Act" should be renewed and expanded with great vigor.

Legislators in Illinois and Missouri are pondering legislation that would give their states’ electoral votes to the presidential candidate who won the most popular votes nationwide. The idea is to avoid a repeat of the 2000 presidential election, in which one candidate won the popular vote but the other candidate won in the electoral college.

The proposal is premised on the seemingly obvious idea that we’re a democracy, and in a democracy, the majority rules, right?

Well, not really. In fact, the United States is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. And “majority rules” is not, and never has been, the basis of our system of government.

Consider the United States Senate. In the Senate, Wyoming’s half-million voters have the same amount of power as California’s 30 million voters. “Undemocratic?” Probably. A violation of “one man, one vote?” absolutely.

And there are lots of other examples. We have a Bill of Rights that prohibits the government from engaging in censorship, unreasonable searches, or torture, even if the majority of Congress wants to do these things. Those rules are enforced by the Supreme Court, about as undemocratic an institution as one can imagine. Even within the Senate, a minority of 41 Senators can bring legislation to a halt using a technique called the filibuster.

And if you want to change any of these requirements, you have to pass a constitutional amendment, a thoroughly undemocratic process that involves a 2/3 vote in each House of Congress and the approval of 3/4 of the states. In a more democratic nation, all you’d have to do to change the constitution would be to get a majority of Congress, or perhaps a majority of the popular vote in a referendum.

Why did the Founders set up such a crazy, undemocratic system? They could have set up a process more like the mother country. The British have a parliamentary system in which the House of Commons appoints the prime minister. They also have an unwritten constitution, which means that in theory, at least, a majority in parliament can change the law any time it likes. The House of Commons is not only more democratic than the American Congress, it’s arguably more efficient and more accountable, too.

The founders designed our federal system the way they did for an important reason: they believed a system of checks and balances was essential to preserving liberty. They wanted a system in which different branches of government represented different interests and responded to different political incentives. This purpose would be defeated if all three branches of government were elected by a majority vote, because then all three would be likely to reflect the short-term passions of the majority.

The electoral college also symbolizes another extremely important principle of our republic: federalism. Unlike many other nations, our states are not simply administrative districts of the federal government. They are sovereign entities that voluntarily joined together to form a nation. Just as the Bill of Rights prevents a majority of voters from using their power to the detriment of minorities, the structure of the Senate and the Electoral College ensures that the distinct concerns of each of the 50 states has a voice in the national decision-making process.

If Missouri adopted legislation that helped to effectively emasculate the electoral college, it would be encouraging future presidents to ignore the particular concerns of Missouri voters and and undermine the sovereignty of our state. The United States is not a democracy, it’s a federal constitutional republic. I think that’s an important principle, and I hope our elected officials don’t do anything to undermine it.

The Missouri House is considering a constitutional amendment that would designate English as the language for "official proceedings" in Missouri.

The amendment is a bad idea. The vast majority of official proceedings in Missouri are already conducted in English. And translating a few documents into Spanish isn’t anywhere near as costly as tax breaks for favorite employers, ethanol subsidies, or the educational adequacy lawsuit.

Official proceedings should be conducted in whatever language is convenient for the participants. That’s common sense, and we don’t need a frivolous amendment about it.

Discussions about a new bridge over the Mississippi are heating up.  The Post-Dispatch has an updated story on today’s meeting of the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council.  Quick, how many bridges connect Metro East, Illinois to Missouri?  I bet most people would guess low.  The answer, and I just did this in my head so feel free to correct me, is nine.  Six for cars and trucks, one for trains, one for MetroLink, bikes and pedestrians, and one for bikes and pedestrians only.  We absolutely do not need the billion dollar bridge people have proposed over the river.  The fact that Missouri can’t afford its share of any bridge, much less the expensive option, has made the goal of our own Golden Gate impossible. 

Both of the options being considered currently:

Under one plan, Illinois would shoulder the cost of building a companion bridge to the Martin Luther King Bridge. Under another, a private group would pay for and build a bridge and collect tolls ranging from $1 to $6.

are preferable to earlier proposals.  The toll road idea is excellent.  I believe the fears of Illinois politicians are overblown, as most of their voters will remain on the free bridges while many of the same trucks that so often tie up those bridges will choose the new toll road.  Time is money in trucking, and toll expenses are tax write-offs. 

The MLK  companion / addition is also a good idea.  As anyone who had crossed the MLK knows, it is a little tight in the turns.  Making the current bridge all eastbound and adding new westbound lanes on a connected bridge will significantly improve flow into north downtown and onto 70 westbound. 

The final option I like, not discussed in the article, is expanding MetroLink into Madison County.  St. Clair County residents in Illinois use MetroLink more than any other demographic group in the area.  Going north from Fairview Heights to add a line and stations in Collisville and Edwardsville would serve many commuters who work in Downtown St. Louis and greatly reduce traffic.   Any of these three proposals will cost Illinois a great deal of money and Missouri little to none.  So I can’t really understand why Missouri’s reps on the Council all voted against the companion bridge proposal when they are not being asked to pay for it. 

The state senate recently approved a bill to increase the competition amongst video service providers, specifically cable companies. The arguments for cable franchise reform are many. An excellent overview of them can be found here. Though this bill falls a little short of full competition, and gives considerable preference to existing cable providers, it is nonetheless a positive step in the right direction. Under this legislation, a state-wide franchising agreement replaces the current stucture of individual municipality licensing agreements, and, according to the Springfieldnews-Leader:

- Cable providers would be prohibited from withholding services based on race or income. Within three years of providing service, cable firms would have to devote at least 25 percent of their services to households that earn less than $35,000.

- Municipalities would be able to require cable operators to designate up to three channels for public, educational or governmental use.

- Municipalities also would be able to collect a fee, no more than 5 percent of gross revenue, from cable providers. Providers would be able to pass this tax onto customers.

So municipalities still get some say in how their citizens receive their cable services, but without creating the artificial barriers to entry found under our current system that stifle competition and drive up prices. Furthermore, the new plan would encourage the laying of broadband and other kinds of communication infrastructure that benefits industries and consumers well beyond mere cable service. In all, this bill proposes changes that will be beneficial to Missouri consumers.

Fox 2 in Saint Louis has a great story on the eminent domain controversy in Arnold. I did a story about Dr. Tourkakis and his fight against eminent domain abuse last year. So I can tell you from personal experience that Dr. Tourkakis’s land is not “blighted” by any reasonable standard. It’s tidy, well-maintained, and provides dentistry services to hundreds of area residents. When I visited the area last year, his neighbors included an auto repair shop, a day-care center, a VFW, and a stove and fireplace store, none of which showed any noticeable signs of blight. The picture on the right there is one of the “blighted” homes that will be taken (or may already have been taken).

Mayor Mark Powell tries to hide behind the excuse that state law made him do it, but that’s nonsense. The standards for “blight” are so loose that almost any piece of property can be taken if the city wants to do so. All they have to do is to pay a consulting firm such as PGAV to study the area and declare it blighted. Not surprisingly, when a city asks a firm to determine if an area is blighted, the firm almost always finds in the affirmative. So state law effectively gives him the power to take peoples’ property using eminent domain, but it’s up to the municipality to decide whether to do so. You’ll notice that even the mayor isn’t willing to say with a straight face that Dr. Tourkakis’s land is blighted, because it obviously isn’t.

Eric Hanushek presents testimony against the claims of school districts that are suing the state:

Hanushek analyzed Missouri test scores and spending levels at the state’s public school districts. That analysis did find a link between higher spending and higher student performance. But Hanushek said the link was extremely weak.

By his estimate, schools would have to triple, or even quadruple spending to raise average student test scores to levels that meet state standards.

The spending-performance relationship is so weak because most of the variation in Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores (about 85-90%, depending on the subject and grade level) is within district, not between districts. So if you compare any two students in Missouri, most of the difference in their test scores is caused by their families, teachers, and personal characteristics–what their districts spend doesn’t matter very much.

And as Hanushek points out in his many publications, a weak correlation between spending and achievement at current spending levels won’t necessarily translate into any correlation if you triple spending. We don’t have enough experience with such high spending levels to know what would happen.