In the latest proof that foolishness knows no party, Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger have teamed up to write about payday loans in the Wall Street Journal:

Imagine the economic and social benefits of putting more than $8 billion in the hands of low- and middle-income Americans. That is the amount millions of people now spend each year at check-cashing outlets, payday lenders and pawnshops on basic financial services that most Americans receive for free — or very little cost — at their local bank or credit union.

The high interest rates charged on payday loans reflect how much riskier those loans are than the typical transactions higher-income people handle at full-service banks. When a mainstream bank lends money, the borrower is typically someone who has deposited money there and who has a relationship with the bank. Payday lenders don’t have that security.

Payday lenders’ high charges and fees reflect a cost, and that cost won’t go away just because people switch to full-service banks. Someone has to pay for risky loans, and if the lenders don’t, someone else — probably taxpayers — will have to. Or, as a result of usury laws, poor people won’t be able to borrow money at all.

Clinton and Schwarzenegger suggest that their plan won’t be costly because it will just encourage people to use cheap services that are already there. But switching risky loans from one kind of bank to another won’t make the cost go away.

Poor people can escape payday loans if they earn more than they spend, save enough to deposit money in an account, gain financial literacy and form relationships with mainstream banks. That’s a worthwhile goal, but we can’t achieve it with a quick fix.

The Kansas City Star has a preview of tonight’s State of the Union speech, which I will tune in to only by default, because nothing else is on — if I watch at all. That bit of honestly aside, some parts of it have my tongue wagging, although I have no faith whatsoever that these things will pass Congress — and I have to ask why the President didn’t attempt to do these things earlier in his administration:

Offering modest new plans, Bush proposed a $300 million "Pell Grants
for Kids" program to help poor children in struggling public schools
pay for the cost of attending a private school or a better public
school outside their district.

I love this idea, although as I think about it I don’t know how much I like it as a Federal program…

Bush also was to urge elimination of 150 federal programs that [White House counselor Ed] Gillespie called "wasteful or bloated."

Dare to dream for this to actually happen. Again, why wasn’t this proposed earlier in this administration?

The president will issue an executive order Tuesday ordering federal
agencies to ignore "earmarks" that aren’t explicitly enacted into law,
erasing a common practice in which lawmakers’ projects are outlined in
nonbinding documents that accompany legislation. The move is aimed at
making doubly sure that lawmakers have the opportunity to strike
earmarks during floor debates.

However, Bush’s plan leaves untouched the more than 11,700 earmarks totaling $16.9 billion that Congress approved last year.

If the earmarks from last year are not legally required to be spent, then why on earth is the money going to be spent? Who cares when they were passed? I guess it’s better late than never, but this is awfully damned late.

This is the type of thing one can get very excited about — but this is just a speech, not a piece of legislation. When the latter succeeds in doing these things, then I will get REALLY excited.

The Kansas City School District is (once again) stumbling down the path (recently blazed by the Saint Louis School District) toward unaccreditation. Because of the district’s continuing struggles, Superintendent Anthony Amato — who was earning a cool $220,000 per year — has been pressured into stepping down into a "consulting role."

So now that the district is in the market for its 10th superintendent in 30 years, to whom could the Kansas City schools look for "interim" leadership? None other than Dr. John Martin, the deputy superintendent who helped oversee the Saint Louis schools’ descent into unaccreditation. To be fair, my knowledge of Dr. Martin is largely limited to his heated opposition to charter schools, and he surely cannot be blamed for the sorry state the Saint Louis school system was in when he arrived. But if his presence as an administrator has done anything to help that district, I am not aware of it. Martin will reportedly receive compensation on the order of "$20,000 a month" in his new position.

Really, Kansas City School District? There were no other potential interim superintendents out there who, say, hadn’t recently failed to help a district avoid loss of accreditation?

For the sake of the children in those failing schools, I certainly hope that Dr. Martin proves to be more effective in Kansas City than he was in Saint Louis. But if I were a parent in that district, I would be very concerned about this choice of interim superintendent.

The Show-Me Institute’s study on light rail proposals for Kansas City certainly received a good deal of attention yesterday. Many in the KC media, but certainly not all, seemed to focus on the crime aspect of the study, which was a small part of the overall study. Our editor, Eric, previously posted a rebuttal to some of the criticisms of Randal O’Toole’s use of crime stats. I am going to leave that aside, as there are much more important reasons why Kansas City should give very serious thought to reconsider moving forward with light rail, such as the small proportion of jobs downtown in comparison to other downtowns, and the fact that the much-desired new development along light rail lines almost never occurs without additional subsidies. Yes, when I ride MetroLink, I feel very safe — but, then again, I am a total badass …

A quick note to commentators and blog posters everywhere: It is not sufficient to say that Randal O’Toole is simply opposed to light rail, and as such this study should be discounted. You have to actually read the study and then document where you think he may be wrong. So far, after reading various blog comments and news articles, I have not seen anyone do the latter.

So here goes the media roundup, if you are interested — as I am sure you are. The Kansas City Star published a solid article on the study, and linked to the full document as well, so readers can judge the arguments on their own — which we appreciate. Randal O’Toole and Crosby Kemper appeared live on two radio shows yesterday. The podcast of the "Chris Stigall Show" on KCMO AM 710 is here, and we’ll provide a link to the "Shanin and Parks Show" interview on KMBZ AM 980 when we have it.

I can only find one streaming video online for the TV station interviews. The video of the NBC Action News report is embedded here. Two TV stations, Fox 4 and KMBC-9, only have the online text versions of their stories online. KCTV-5 also appeared at the press conference, but I can’t locate the story on their website. We appreciate the coverage from all of these stations!

We will link to additional stories about the study as they appear. We are pleased to be a part of the discussion about this issue in Kansas City. Our primary goal was to give the people of Kansas City additional information about the other options they have for mass transit. If they choose to pay the higher taxes that will be required to move ahead with light rail, that is entirely up to them.

A front-page story in this morning’s Post-Dispatch details the delays that have plagued the Ballpark Village development in downtown St. Louis. At the center of the trouble, ironically, is a rather familiar name (emphasis added):

[Director of Development Chase Martin] attributed the delay to negotiations with Clayton-based Centene Corp.
after the company announced in September it would relocate its
headquarters to the Ballpark Village site.

This being the same Centene that wowed downtown officials in September with the announcement that they would be moving their headquarters and employees into the city to anchor the new development. This also being the same Centene that, four months prior, lost a judgment at the Missouri Supreme Court that prevented them from seizing "blighted" land in downtown Clayton through the power of eminent domain.

Any chance those two were related?

Now, however, negotiations between Centene, the Cardinals, the city, and Cordish Co. (the developer) are threatening to delay the project even further, to the point where completion is not expected until the beginning of the 2014 season, and officials are worried that the project may not even be under way when Busch Stadium hosts the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in July, 2009.

On one hand, this story brings up the positive side of what can happen when property owners stand up for their rights. Centene, which almost certainly would have built its new headquarters in Clayton had it been given the approval, will act as a major cornerstone in the continued revival of downtown St. Louis.

On the other hand, the last thing that I want to hear over the loudspeakers when I’m standing on the street outside the left-field fence during the Home Run Derby is Joe Morgan telling Chris Berman, "Hey, look at that big vacant lot across the street. That coulda been something really nice, but these people wouldn’t let a company build a building for some reason and they had to move and now it’s just a big ol’ pit. SWING AND A FLY!!!"

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

Today, the Show-Me Institute released a new policy study, "Review of Kansas City Transit Plans," by Randal O’Toole. The study takes a look at recent light-rail proposals in Kansas City proposals and weighs their costs and benefits, looking at statistics and case studies from light-rail projects in other municipalities throughout the United States.

O’Toole documents:

• the typical high cost overruns of other light-rail implementations;
• the low ridership capacity of light-rail and streetcars;
• the increased operating costs over more flexible forms of transit;
• the years of advance planning required, and the accompanying uncertainty about future transit needs or preferences;
• the decrease in per-capita transit ridership that most other regions have experienced after building light-rail lines;
• the ways in which light rail increases traffic congestion;
• the unsuitability of light rail for municipalities without high concentrations of downtown jobs;
• the increased crime statistics correlated with light rail;
• the fact that most light-rail lines consume more energy and emit more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than the average passenger car;
• and the fact that light rail has not spurred urban development in other cities without huge additional subsidies from the government.

In short:

This information suggests that light rail and streetcars would not be a good fit for Kansas City. Instead, this study recommends that the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority contract out bus operations to private companies, which is likely to save 30 to 40 percent of costs. This, in turn, will allow a 50- to 60-percent increase in bus services, including several new bus–rapid transit routes. These improvements should result in far more new riders using public transit than would be gained from light rail — without increasing the cost to taxpayers.

We’ve already received coverage from the Kansas City Star about this study. The Star’s article is generally fair, allowing O’Toole and Show-Me Institute Chairman Crosby Kemper III to make brief arguments, but the piece is misleading in places. For instance, in this section:

The author is Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington D.C. He has written several papers and books denouncing light rail, and national pro-rail groups such as the Center for Transportation Excellence have accused him of presenting flawed and inaccurate arguments about this increasingly popular form of mass transit. Some of those arguments — such as associating light rail with crime — appear in the Kansas City study.

“I think it’s important to look at this study in the context of its author,” said Mark Huffer, executive director of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, which is leading Kansas City’s light-rail planning. “I think the conclusions … were a foregone conclusion before he (O’Toole) started.”

O’Toole doesn’t disagree. In an interview, he said: “Generally, light rail is not a good fit anywhere. … It doesn’t carry as many people as buses but it costs a lot more.”

The only argument of O’Toole’s that the Star piece makes any effort to discredit is the study’s use of crime statistics, which is mentioned in the first paragraph quoted above. But this is juxtaposed with the second paragraph, where a critic suggests that O’Toole’s conclusions were "foregone," followed by a third paragraph with O’Toole agreeing — but only about the economic cost/benefit portions of his argument. The way these paragraphs flow, it makes it appear as though O’Toole is agreeing that his interpretation of crime statistics was also "foregone," which is not the case. O’Toole was certainly familiar with these statistics before he began the Show-Me Institute study, but his interpretation of them is accurate.

The Star piece elaborates on its statistical quibble later:

However, O’Toole’s Kansas City study includes some methodologies and arguments he’s been criticized for elsewhere, such as drawing sweeping conclusions from small samples of statistics.

Take crime. O’Toole wrote that light rail has “by far the worst crime record in the transit industry” and cited a decade worth of federal statistics for crimes such as homicide. However, those statistics show all light-rail lines across the country were associated with just two homicides in the last seven years of federal data.

It’s true that the statistics show a marked decline in homicides in recent years — for all forms of transit alike. While this is good news — and some might consider those two deaths an outlier — O’Toole’s study uses statistics "between 1996 and 2005," which goes back a little further than the years considered by the Star. Although light-rail homicides weren’t too much higher in raw numbers in the late 1990s, they still outstripped buses by a huge margin, when considered in terms of per-capita passenger miles. For instance, in 1998, buses had 40 homicides — the highest raw number by far for buses in any of the years O’Toole’s study considers. The homicide count for light rail saw an uptick to 4 for that same year, which seems insignificant until you consider that U.S. transit riders only logged 1,128 passenger miles for light rail in 1998, compared to 20,360 for bus. If we compare the homicide rate per passenger mile, it’s as though there were about 72 homicides on light rail in comparison to those 40 on buses.

Even if we were to consider the homicide rate for light rail to be too low for a meaningful statistical comparison, it’s much easier to see the crime trend when looking at robbery, theft, and burglary. While homicides have fallen off on light rail since the ’90s, other types of crime (including rapes) have increased on light rail — especially in these categories. Just looking at the robbery statistics for 2005, there were 535 incidents reported on buses and 377 on light rail. When considered in terms of robberies per passenger mile, it’s as though there were nearly 4,840 robberies on light rail in comparison to those 535 on buses. (Or, alternatively, it’s like there were about 42 robberies on buses in comparison to those 377 on light rail.) I could show similar comparisons for almost any of those measurements of transit crime.

In other words, the rates of violent crime, in general, only seem lower for light rail because there are far fewer miles of light rail track than there are miles of bus routes. But if both are considered in comparable terms, light rail is far riskier.

Do we need to panic about Chinese education? This organization thinks so:

The message is clear: While Americans are partying, Asian students are playing the violin, learning math, and preparing to take over the world economy.

I’ve commented on the difference between U.S. test scores and those of other countries, because the gap shows that we could be doing better. However, I do not think that Asian education systems have no problems and we should try to be just like them. With all the recent talk about national standards and tests, we should keep in mind a few reasons not to panic and become just like China or India:

1. In some countries with rigid public education systems, poor children do better in private schools. Their test scores are better, and they’re more likely to have access to a sufficient number of computers, drinking fountains, and bathrooms. That’s right, bathrooms. If we really wanted a public education system just like the ones in Asia, we would need to scale back on our plumbing for the poor.
2. State-run education systems are unjust. For example, in Singapore students are segregated by ability into different tracks in seventh grade. Which track you’re in determines where you’ll go to high school and college, and what kind of job you’ll eventually get. Students who start out behind aren’t given a chance to catch up.
3. Some Asian students get burned out by intense competition as kids, then do nothing when they go to college. Gary Becker notes that this is a problem in Japan.
4. The global economy opens the world to competition, but it also means that the relative position of your country matters less. In every country, good students and hard workers will be rewarded. It’s true that foreign countries can be expected to keep catching up with the U.S. economically. It’s called convergence, and it happens naturally in the absence of wars and other trade barriers. This will happen no matter what our education system is like.

We should improve our education system because we’re not as good as we could be, not because we need to be a certain distance ahead of the rest of the world.

A Georgia public school district has implemented the “Learn and Earn” program, a program which pays students approximately $8/hour to attend after-school tutoring programs.

The program is funded by the Learning Makes A Difference Foundation, a local non-profit.

Being only somewhat facetious, I wonder how this program circumvents child labor laws, since the students are only in the 8th grade (which makes them, what, 13 or 14?). The program’s guidelines appear to violate existing federal laws, at least from a cursory glance.

Sol Stern writes in the City Journal that school choice is dead and we should focus on instructional reform. Basically, Stern complains that school choice hasn’t been implemented anywhere, than argues that it’s ineffective because New York City’s system of rewards and punishments for students within the monopoly public district hasn’t worked. Neal McCluskey points out this non-sequitur and refutes much of Stern’s argument here.

Stern is right that it takes a long, long time to change the education system. Although parental choice supporters have been around for 50 years, it’s only recently that a few limited voucher and tax-credit programs have sprung up. That’s just the nature of entrenched monopolies. It’s hard to change them, and they don’t always improve when they first encounter competition.

Instructional reform would take a long time to implement, too. And most people would be unhappy with the results. There are big battles within individual districts about new math versus old math, and how best to teach first-grade reading. Deciding on one standard K-12 curriculum would be harder — and the stakes would be much higher. Right now, if one district adopts an ineffective curriculum, some people may be able to move out of the area. If a state or the federal government enforced a national curriculum, a bad decision would affect students everywhere in the state or the country.

We won’t get a system of parental choice overnight. We won’t have a "rich" national curriculum tomorrow, either. Given that reforming education is a long-term process, let’s go about it the right way rather than looking for quick fixes that will cause more problems.

While today’s news is mostly dominated by depression, in the form of finances, film, and the city of St. Charles doing its best to ban fun (no low-cost drink specials … seriously?), a particular event following a holiday meal with the family last night begs for comment.

In my family, dinners in January and October have long been interrupted by calls from news organizations or interest groups seeking to test the opinions of white, middle-class, Midwestern America. Traditionally, these calls are met with a stern rebuke by one of my parents, angry that family time is being interrupted, but last night, en route to a biscuit, I got to the phone first.

Most of the six questions were fairly straightforward inquiries relating to the upcoming November election between Gov. Matt Blunt and Attorney General Jay Nixon, but one in particular caught my fancy (emphasis added):

"Do you support the right of law-abiding Missourians to purchase and carry concealed weapons?"

I asked the pollster to rephrase the question and she repeated it directly off her sheet. Shame. Such a question, immediately following the questions that asked about my party affiliation and opinion on abortion, couldn’t possibly have had the intention of pushing me towards one particular response. After all, what if I say no? Am I supporting the rights of non-law-abiding Missourians to carry concealed weapons? Because I don’t think anybody is such a big fan of that.

It would be stupid of me to believe that every opinion poll provides an accurate description of how the electorate feels about any issue. I just hope that everybody else who was up getting a biscuit at the same time recognizes where their responses go, and where those numbers end up.

There is nothing on earth better than Rocky Mountain skiing in enormous amounts of fresh snow. But now that I have had my yearly ski renewal, it’s time to get back to work and jump into whatever debate I feel like jumping into.

I see that Clay Chastain has filed a lawsuit to enforce the voter-approved referendum on light rail in Kansas City. I am not going to say anything on this now, but check out the main SMI web page on Wednesday, January 23, and you will see something very big on this exact issue. 

As discussed elsewhere on this blog by our intrepid intern, Nick, mandatory steroid testing of high school athletes has been proposed by the state legislature. There is nothing I loathe more than drug testing for any but the most sensitive of jobs, safety-wise (i.e., school bus drivers) — so, as you can imagine, I think this is an absolutely atrocious idea. Hey, kids! If you want to run cross-country, you first have to piss in a cup and prove your innocence! I am usually pretty good at understanding the reasons why people disagree with me on various issues, but I have never been able to remotely fathom the enthusiasm many people have for drug testing.

The Riverfront Times has a well-done story (link via Missouri Political News Service) on the similarly terrible decisions to install red-light cameras throughout the city of Saint Louis. The article in question focuses on a new camera at the intersection of Skinker and Delmar, a location I know very well. As teenagers, we used to buy beer at the J & W Liquor store two blocks east of there, until the whole area up and got gentrified. Anyway, there is absolutely no "safety" reason to have a red-light camera there. The reason there is a no-right-turn-on-red sign from eastbound Delmar to southbound Skinker is so residents of Parkview will have easier openings in and out of their subdivision. (I am certain of this, by the way, based on knowledge from a former job.) While that may well be a legitimate reason for the ban, it serves the convenience of the residents rather than any "safety" issue. The normal reason for such right-turn-on-red bans is a lack of visibility at certain intersections — but the visibility at this intersection is absolutely fine. Saint Louis city is doing absolutely nothing more than using cameras to raise money.

I think this is enough for today. Damn, the skiing was great! 

The Post-Dispatch ran a two-part article this this weekend (and this morning) on Missouri’s midwifery battle. The casual reader may find our preoccupation with this issue bizarre. But it’s not the midwife focus per se that we care about — it’s the Show-Me Institute’s staunch opposition to most occupational licensing regulations.

Advocates of midwife-assisted deliveries argue that the experience is more natural, offering new mothers the opportunity to experience the miracle of childbirth in a relaxed, conscious setting. Dr. Laurel Walter-Baumstark, a family physician on the board of the National Association of Birthing Centers, argues that "there is just no better model of preventive maternity care than the midwifery model."

But opponents counter that their opposition to legalized midwifery is focused on pre- and post-natal safety concerns, not money. For example, Dr. David Redfern, an obstetrician in Springfield, Mo., who testified against midwife legislation last year, argues, "[H]ow we [deliver babies] is very important, and we have to take patient safety into consideration."

But the doctor’s opposition misses the point. Eliminating occupational licensing requirements doesn’t mean an end to medical safety. The state is free to continue to sanction doctors (and other professionals) who properly meet their standards. What’s more, the state should set medical standards, as a way for consumers to ensure the quality of their medical practitioners. But it is not the state’s role to tell people how to live their lives. If a new mother wants to use a midwife to assist in childbirth, that’s her decision — a decision that no one is better-equipped to make than her.

And as the Post documents, doctor-assisted births aren’t necessarily qualitatively better than midwife deliveries (emphasis added):

“Medical interventions are on the rise. The rate of labor inductions in the U.S. has more than doubled since 1990 to 22 percent. The 2006 rate of births by C-section has reached 31 percent, the highest ever. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it can find no medical reason to justify the increases and says the interventions are not producing better maternal or infant health outcomes."

Before you dismiss this issue (or dismiss consideration of the role of occupational licensing in general), think of it this way: Are you really comfortable with surrendering your freedom to make your own decisions about your body? We shouldn’t be afraid of this type of choice; we should embrace it.