MoDot wants to make Amtrak more popular:

Weiler says Missouri has about 175,000 Amtrak riders annually. He speculates that could increase to 250,000 if on-time performance and reliability could be improved.

Amtrak’s problems are the inevitable result of the subsidies it receives and its monopoly position. It doesn’t need to attract new passengers, because when it isn’t profitable the state or federal government will bail it out. If the state wants a thriving rail service, it should tell Amtrak to sink or swim. 

Still, it could be that trains wouldn’t be used much more even if there were competition. Trains were an important form of transportation in the days before the airplane and when most people didn’t have cars. Fortunately, we don’t have government programs to keep alive other forms of transportation from that era. If we did, MoDot would be worrying about dwindling passenger numbers on Amhorseandbuggy.

Here’s a funny excerpt from the legislative report of the Missouri Medical Association, the cartel professional association that believes expectant mothers shouldn’t have the option of utilizing the services of a midwife:

At press time this afternoon, there isn’t much to report from the lay midwifery front. Senate Bill 303, which would legalize the practice, did not come up this week for the final Senate vote it needs before it can advance to the House.

However, late this afternoon, while the Senate was hotly debating a pivotal piece of legislation to name the crawfish as the official state invertebrate, Senator John Loudon, the author of the midwifery bill, offered this substitute version: “The Missouri Medical Society shall be known as the official invertebrate of the state of Missouri due to their unwillingness to compete with a bunch of midwives.” (We couldn’t make this up.)

Regrettably, Senator Loudon withdrew the amendment before the Senate could approve it. Even though he didn’t quite have our name right, we were this close to forever being a question on grade school civics tests in classrooms across the state. Rats!

Of course, we at the Show-Me Institute would never stoop to this kind of name-calling, but I have to admit that it made me chuckle.

O’Fallon, Mo., is considering expanding its city council in response to rapid population growth. If the 75,000 estimated population is correct, I believe that would make O’Fallon the largest municipality outside of the city of St. Louis itself in the greater St. Louis area. Someone should feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but my guess is that an Illinois-side city may be larger, but no Missouri municipalities are. Anyway, this got me thinking about the best set-up for a local government. There are, not surprisingly, many different options in our area. Kirkwood and Webster Groves have at-large councils that do not have individual wards. Every councilmember (six in both) represents the entire city. The plus of this is that each official gets to consider the good of the whole city when making decisions. The converse of that, and the reason I don’t like at-large seats, is that each official gets to ignore those minor, pesky issues that nobody wants to deal with. Who has to return the phone calls of the neighborhood crank if nobody represents that person specifically? And, sometimes, those neighborhood cranks are right about something.

O’Fallon is considering many options, mostly involving expanding the number of wards. Perhaps they would be like Wildwood, which for some insane reason chose to have eight wards with two councilmembers each. Florissant gets a little better, with nine wards but with just one rep. per ward. University City, where I proudly live, has only three wards but with two reps per ward. That system — three or four wards with two reps per ward — is used by a number of cities in St. Louis County. The city of St. Louis is, of course, the champion of too many elected officials, with 28 alderman for 28 (now very small) wards and 11 other citywide elected officials.

Whatever O’Fallon chooses to do will be affected by its city class, because charter cities have more authority to form their own style of government than other classes. In my opinion, cities should have fewer elected officials in general but pay them better to justify the work they put in. I should be clear that I do not mean “pay them better” in a dramatic sense, just higher stipends to encourage more residents to consider getting active. In my opinion, cities in the general range of 25,000 to 75,000 people should have a full-time city manager, a mayor elected citywide and paid a part-time salary of around $10,000, and four wards with one councilmember each making around $5,000 a year. One councilmember would be elected chair each year from within the body — I am looking at you, city of St. Louis, and your silly president of the Board of Aldermen position. The mayor would vote as a regular member of the council, not just sign or veto bills like governors or mayors of large cities. The most important thing O’Fallon could do is upgrade from a city administrator to a city manager, which sounds redundant, but the latter actually has more power and authority than the former.

A regular reader e-mailed me with his thoughts on the recent decision against Centene and Clayton in the ongoing battle over eminent domain, the planned Centene development and whether or not a prime corner in one of St. Louis County’s wealthiest cities is ‘blighted.’  He asked if the fact that the decision is not being ‘published’ means that Clayton residents now have a protection against eminent domain that residents in the rest of Missouri don’t?  As the Post article today explains, if the opinion against Centene was published it would be binding on similar cases in Eastern Missouri, but as it is not being published it is therefore not binding.  Sorry for the double negative, but I think that was the proper way to put it.  Anyway, I am not a lawyer, unlike my wife, dad, step-dad, step-mom, one out of three brothers, brother-in-law, former boss, and most of my friends, so I can’t give any definitive answers here.  However, I think this is an example of common-sense kicking its way into the legal system, as the appellate judges seemed well aware that the State Supreme Court would be making its own decision no matter how they ruled, so why bother with some of the formalities?  As the Supreme Court is expected to rule in a short period of time, as far as these things go, and there are no similar cases being decided in the near future, why kill more trees than you have to and publish the opinion? 

My correspondent further wrote that in his opinion, "Social liability is purposely created by local city councils."  I don’t know if he meant that as a general statement or specific to Clayton and Centene, but as a general statement about how governments get what they want I agree with him completely.   

Students in the Riverview Gardens district may be able to transfer to other districts next fall:

192 teachers have received layoff notices and another 100 employees are expected to get notices. State educators are expected to vote on Riverview Gardens at the next meeting in May. The district currently has provisional accreditation[...]

If the district loses accreditation, Riverview Gardens officials will have two years to try and gain it back.

Unlike St. Louis, the elected school board would remain in place and would not be replaced by a transitional school board.

But as early as next fall, students could be allowed to transfer to more successful schools in nearby school districts.

Here’s the surprising part of the story:

District leaders Rhonda Key and Natalie Thomas say they welcome the intervention and see it as an opportunity to improve.

Threatening a district with state control sends administrators scrambling to improve graduation rates and test scores. Imagine what an incentive for improvement the district would have if parents could choose to send their kids to different schools.

At the risk of sound horribly self-serving, Tim is right. The Show-Me Institute intern is no ordinary intern. Though I did spend some time chained to the copier/fax machine, it was not time spent in vain. Not only did I get credit hours and valuable experience in the realm of state government and public policy, I also gained first hand exposure to an underreported political philosophy of which I had no previous knowledge, but is nonetheless gaining in popularity and relevance in today’s increasingly polarized and, well, silly political climate.

Seriously, these guys do great work, are really nice people, and are spearheading a movement with great promise for affecting positive change. Whether you’re a naive young grad student like myself, looking to change the world for the better, or a grizzled cynical veteran of the politics game simply looking for a breath of fresh political air, you’d be a fool to pass up this opportunity. Anyone with specific questions requiring a more candid answer should feel free to contact me here anytime.

We’ve just released the application for our fall internship program. If you’re a college student, I hope you’ll apply. If you’re not a college student, I hope you’ll pass the application on to someone who is.

In a lot of organizations, the interns are treated like slave labor. They’re chained to a photocopier, and they get little or no contact with the real decision-makers in the organization. The Show-Me Institute is different. Our interns spend the vast majority of their time doing research and writing. Our current intern, Steve Bernstetter, had no less than three op-eds in the Saint Louis Business Journal this semester, as well as the opportunity to do an in-depth research project. Because there are fewer than a dozen people in the office, our interns get the opportunity to work closely with almost everyone on staff. That means you get an in-depth understanding of how a think tank works, including editing and publishing, event planning, and travel around the state.

More information and the application form is available in PDF form here. Please help us spread the word!

A Chesterfield resident is unhappy about a proposal to allow students to attend public schools outside of their district. This is the most candid letter to the editor about education policy I have ever read:

This may be logical for students in failing districts[.]

She goes on to complain that the bill wouldn’t just affect failing districts, it would actually send the kids from failing districts to other, not-failing districts. Then the Chesterfield residents wouldn’t be able to set class sizes as small as they’d like.

First of all, if you want to allow students to transfer out of failing districts, they have to transfer into other schools. I don’t know how you could write legislation to do that without affecting districts that aren’t failing–unless you allowed students to use vouchers to go to private schools instead. I doubt that’s what the letter writer had in mind, though.

But what struck me most about this letter is the lack of compassion for students in failing schools. She writes:

This bill threatens to overcrowd those successful districts that might host such students, perhaps setting them up for failure.

As though all the SLPS students aren’t "set up for failure" where they are now.

I encountered this attitude all the time when I attended a Chesterfield public school. They don’t want any outsiders to threaten their small classes, segregated schools, and resulting inflated property values.
This proposal certainly would be "logical" for students in failing districts. It would also be a step towards righting the injustice of public education in the city.

Huge news in Clayton yesterday as an Appeals Court rejected Clayton’s, and Centene Corporation’s, bid to acquire three properties on Forsyth by eminent domain for Centene’s large and controversial expansion and retail project.  I am less radical on the issue of eminent domain than others here at SMI, so you can look forward to posts with additional analysis and more gloating from others, but there is no doubt that the area in question is absolutely NOT blighted by any normal understanding of the word. 

The appellate court concluded, however,  that a study by a planning firm, PGAV, suggesting the area was blighted was insufficient evidence for city aldermen to make the blighting determination.

I know this area very well, and the buildings in question are very nice, productive properties.  To reach this determination the three judges really just had to go for a walk along Forsyth.  The buildings in question are just not as productive as some would like them to be.  That, however, does not forfeit their rights as property owners.  I truly hope that a negotiated compromise, in a traditional business (i.e. pay for for the land), not legal, manner is reached and this project goes forward, as it will be great for Clayton. 

In fairness to Clayton, they are not doing anything that has not already been done numerous times by neighboring cities like Richmond Heights, Brentwood and Maplewood.  Clayton is just doing it (or trying to do it) after the Kelo decision when people are much more aware of the abuses of eminent domain.  Clayton is also oppoosed by people much more powerful, and wealthier, than people who have lost the eminent domain battles in other parts of St. Louis County.  You may have caught that one of the property owners fighting the development is a ‘Danforth.’  I am guessing that most people don’t remember the names of the people in Evans Place, hell, I can’t even Google Evans Place and it wasn’t torn down until the 90’s.

What I just wrote is not a defense of the project as much as looking at both sides, which is always positive even when one side is pretty clearly in the right.  It is a good thing that judges, and hopefully politicians, start to define ‘blight’ much more stringently.  Clayton is not blighted, but I still hope the project moves forward without the use of eminent domain.   

Kansas City-area officials are considering building a new jail to serve to prison needs of the area, not just one individual city.  This is an excellent idea that would serve KC well.  Jails are one area where regionalism, cooperation and privatizsation have been used succesfully in the St. Louia-area.  The Buzz Westfall Justice Center was built by St. Louis County, after a succesfull bond vote, in the mid-1990’s.  While it is owned and operated by St. Louis County, the 91 municipalities in the County use it to house their prisoners, too.  Space has also been rented out to other entities – the City housed inmates there during the recent construction the City’s own, new jail a few years ago.  While the jail itself is operated by the County, parts of its work have been privatized after competitive bidding, primarily the pharmacy department used to serve the (legal) drug needs of the prisoners.

The City of St. Louis has long used its City Workhouse to house prisoners from other cities and counties.  This medium security facility has for a long time served the public safety needs of the City, other municipalities and counties, and made money for the City of St. Louis at the same time.  If Kansas City goes ahead with a regional jail, am I sure they will find it to be a great decision for the KC area.  It will both improve public safety and save money in the long run.  Not much to complain about there…   

Regular visitors to our website might notice that it looks a little different today. That’s because we’ve upgraded to a new and better content management system that will allow us to put more content on our site more easily, and with better organization. If you notice any problems with the site, please shoot and email to info@showmeinstitute.org and let us know about them!

We’ve also belated posted the Winter issue of Show-Me Quarterly, which went out to our sponsors last month. Click here to read about our recent studies on the income and earnings taxes, our various events on education policy, and a profile of the late, great, Milton Friedman.

It is every elected officials’ favorite question: What to do with a budget surplus?  The Post-Dispatch has a good article on the choices facing Missouri legislators now, and what officials from other states in the fortunate situation of a surplus have chosen to do.  A budget surplus is truly an economic gift that keeps on giving, as a tax cut done because of the surplus expands the economy beyond what the pre-cut economy produced.  A tax cut in response to a surplus, combined with budget discipline in general, can lead to a revolving cycle of healthy economic growth leading to budget surplusses allowing for tax cuts leading to even greater economic growth and continued surplusses.  That is in the theoretical world – in the real world elected officials too often use the surplusses to fund new government programs which must be funded in future years no matter what the economic situation or future needs, resulting in more government programs continuing to hover over and around the economy. 

I like Utah’s answer to the surplus – cut a little bit off every tax rate.

  "Utah reduced its income tax, sales tax and business taxes."

Hawaii is condidering new programs for the state’s homeless – as if the homeless in Hawaii don’t already have it better than the rest of us.  It’s Hawaii, for Christsakes!  Virginia has paid for one-time transportation projects with its surplus, with some help from public-private partnerships.  Missouri could certainly learn from that example.

Oregon and Nebraska are socking money away in rainy day and reserve funds.

Booo!  Where is the fun in that?  Do things really change so much in Nebraska that they need money in a rainy day fund?  In case of emergency, it’s not like that have to get legislation through both houses of the legislature like every other state. 

Missouri’s plans are fine – cutting taxes is good, but I would prefer a small, general cut for everyone to the large, targeted cut for senior citizens that looks likely.  The franchise tax refuction is an excellent idea and will benefit Missouri’s economy.  Maybe with a franchise tax cut we can finally get some outrageously overpriced coffeehouses to open here.  Putting some money ($200 million now counts as ’some money’) away for the future is ok, at small levels rainy day funds make sense – but I think the people of Missouri could do more with that money than the state could or will.