It seems that property tax reassessment reform is nearing final passage in the House (it’s already passed the Senate). I’ve written before about this bill, but here’s a reminder: It would mandate that local jurisdictions roll back property tax rates in response to higher assessments. Advocates argue that the rollback provision is necessary because it ensures that city officials approve tax increases by a vote, rather than by simply inflating property values.

The article has some pretty good coverage of the arguments. In addition, Dave Stokes wrote a fairly comprehensive review of property tax reform last December, and blogged about it here.

But I still don’t completely buy the whole “rollback” argument. While I recognize the potential for appraisal abuse, people certainly don’t feel upset when their house depreciates and they then pay less in taxes. So why should it work in reverse? And if we extend the argument further, why not mandate the same thing for sales tax rates? If the price of a good appreciates in value, should consumers pay a lower tax rate on that good so that the nominal amount of tax is the same as before? Certainly, that would seem silly. But maybe I’m just missing the point.

I definitely disagree with the recommendation that a fair compromise would involve simply adjusting property appraisals by a county average for a particular type of property. Property values are idiosyncratically determined by their specific locations, and it would be patently unfair (in my opinion) to subsidize booming neighborhoods at the expense of houses that have lost thousands of dollars in value.

A chilling article about the North Korean regime.

No matter what your feelings about capitalism are, no "capitalistic" country has ever been as barbaric as these regimes claiming to be "protectors" of the people.

The Show-Me Institute, in conjunction with Saint Louis University, is sponsoring the second lecture in its Series on Economic policy on Thursday, April 17. The speaker, James Guthrie, will address the question, "How Much Money Will It Take to Give America Good Schools?" Here’s a snippet from Guthrie’s bio:

James Guthrie is a professor of public policy and education, chair of the Leadership, Policy, and Organizations department, and director of the Peabody Center for Education Policy at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. He instructs both undergraduate and graduate courses, and conducts research on education policy and finance. He is founder and chairman of the board of Management Analysis & Planning, Inc. (MAP), a private sector management consulting firm specializing in public finance and litigation support.

A pre-event reception will begin at 3:30 p.m. on April 17, with the lecture beginning at 4:00. If you, or anybody you know, may be interested in further examining the complex issues surrounding school finance, be sure to take a look at the event invitation, and then register online.

There are pros and cons to this teacher pay proposal:

House Bill 2430, sponsored by Democrat Jason Holsman, would pay teachers a recruitment bonus of $5,000 to work in a small district. Math and science teachers would get $7,500.

After five, 10 and 20 years in the district, the teacher would receive a retention bonus of $2,500, $5,000 and $10,000 respectively.

Rewarding teaching just for sticking around is not the way to encourage innovation. If you’ll get a bonus after a certain number of years automatically, why strive to teach better? Current salary schedules already place too much emphasis on tenure and not enough on teaching quality.

On the other hand, higher pay for math and science teachers is a good idea. Districts have trouble holding on to math and science teachers when they have to pay them the same as English and history teachers. In general, districts should be free to offer more money to teachers they want to retain — whether that’s because they teach hard-to-staff subjects or because they’re exceptional teachers.

John Stoeffler has a column today in the South Side Journal, in which he quotes the famed constitutional scholar Joseph Story in support of his argument that each branch of government should be its own "final arbiter when it comes to deciding upon the constitutionality of the powers the Constitution authorizes and delegates to it."  If Congress or the president overstep their proper constitutional authority, Stoeffler says, the only legitimate remedy is to vote the bums out — the courts should have nothing to say on the matter. Stoeffler, who apparently operates a "constitutional think tank" called the Madison Forum, makes this notion of limited judicial authority the basis of his support for a proposed constitutional amendment before the General Assembly that would prohibit Missouri’s courts from ordering any increase of taxes or any expenditure of public funds unless they have been specifically authorized by the legislature or a vote of the people.

Stoeffler’s reasoning is flawed, even though the idea behind the constitutional amendment itself has some value. Federalist 78 explains that the judiciary is the proper branch of government to keep the other branches of government within their constitutional boundaries. Alexander Hamilton’s explanation of the judicial authority is directly contrary to that adopted by Story (and now, apparently, Mr. Stoeffler):

If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. [... T]he courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.

Hamilton also opined on the limitations imposed on the judiciary itself. In contrast to the executive branch, which "holds the sword of the community," and the legislative branch, which "commands the purse" of the community, the judicial branch "has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend on the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments." (Emphasis in original.)

So, as described by the authoritative statement on the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, the proper role of courts is to rule upon the constitutionality of the acts of the other branches of government — but they are only empowered to strike down violations, not to refashion the laws so they will conform to the judiciary’s notions of what is proper. For example, school finance cases have been raging for years in Texas, but (despite the intense efforts of the school districts) the Texas Supreme Court recognizes that even when it has held the financing program unconstitutional, it is not permitted to compel the legislature to adopt a specific scheme. Instead, while the unconstitutional system may be enjoined, the legislature has full discretion as to how it will remedy the deficiency. And, of course, even the judiciary’s decisions are subject to checks and balances, in that the executive branch must agree to enforce the courts’ judgments.

An economics blog I frequently visit scours the Internet for “Greenspan mess” sitings — articles in which the words “Greenspan” and “mess” are mentioned in the same paragraph (this occurs much more frequently as of late).

I think we could do the same thing in Missouri with the words “developer” and “blight.”

On today’s list: O’Fallon.

“City officials late Thursday night were debating whether to declare blighted the site of a proposed eco-friendly housing development to allow a developer to receive a tax break over 20 years.”

Missouri newspapers should just hotkey this sentence. It could read something like this:

“[State, County, City] officials [insert time] were debating whether to declare blighted the site of [insert property or district here] to allow a developer to receive a tax break over [enter years here] years.”

The funky mayor of Kansas City appears to understand that political patronage and city hall featherbedding are the ways of political machines, not responsible government. I absolutely love this quote from him in today’s Prime Buzz blog, by the Kansas City Star:

"My job is not save someone’s job," he said. "My job is to exercise leadership."

He said his responsibility is to ensure city workers are doing their jobs well on behalf of citizens.

The above quote gives me hope, which is of course all the rage in fashionable American politics these days. But I digress. The mayor’s response was to a question about whether he is going to fill two openings on his staff. He said yes, and left himself open to criticism (already appearing in the article’s comments section) about "not caring" or "being a meany" or some such crap.

The key question should not be whether the mayor is going to fill his two positions. The question should be: Are they truly needed, and is there enough to do for the new hires to work an honest 40-hour week (or more)? If the answer to those questions is yes, then the mayor should fill the spots. One of the openings is for a policy analyst, and I can assure you that nobody in American business or government has a more demanding job or works harder than policy analysts. …

I shall close in all seriousness. Government is not a jobs program, and taxpayers should not have to fund city workers just because they have been there awhile, or they have good political connections, or because it would be cruel to let them go, or whatever. It is terrific that Mayor Funkhouser understands this, and is leading by making the hard but necessary decisions. Saint Louis City Hall could take a lesson from this. And as I now await the angry phone call, I should clarify that I am referring to Saint Louis city government as a whole — not just one office or leader.

I’m all for preventing drunken driving, but I don’t think scarlet-letter license plates are going to solve the problem. Here are a few reasons I doubt they’ll be so effective as some legislators hope:

1. Drivers will start paying more attention to the license plates around them when they should be paying attention to traffic signs and signals. This distraction could itself cause accidents.

2. In many families, two or more people takes turns driving one car. It’s unfair to subject relatives of a drunk driver to scarlet-letter license plates. This also makes the plates less useful, because no one will know whether they indicate a convicted drunk driver or just a family member.

3. If a car is swerving or otherwise behaving erratically, police should pull it over — whether or not the driver has been convicted previously. As for all the previous offenders who apeear to be driving normally, it’s unlikely that the police will be able to track them all down by their license plates and keep close enough tabs on them to prevent accidents. If convicted drunk drivers are so dangerous that police really need to see that on their cars, then those people should not be driving at all.

Voters in the state of Florida will have the opportunity to eliminate a provision of their constitution that (according to a recent appellate court’s ruling) requires religious discrimination. The provision is a Blaine Amendment, named after James G. Blaine, a congressman who drove an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution so that Catholics would be excluded from certain public benefits. His efforts were unsuccessful at the national level, but 37 states — including Missouri — still have a
Blaine-type amendment within their constitutions. Most of these, though, have been rendered only marginally effective toward their original purpose, because the states have either modified them through amendment or the Supreme Court has interpreted them in such a way as to render them inactive.

Here’s the story of how all this came to pass:

The 19th century saw the United States inundated with waves of immigrants, many of whom were members of the Roman Catholic Church. The nation had been, up to that point, almost uniformly Protestant in its religious composition. The influx of hundreds of thousands of new citizens who, it was feared, would challenge the religious orthodoxy and look to Rome for political instruction was more than many Americans were willing to tolerate. Nativist societies emerged whose purpose was to limit the volume of immigration and to regulate the nationality and class of persons allowed to enter the United States. The anti-immigrant attitudes eventually coalesced into support for the American Party, formed in 1843, also called the "Know-Nothings." By the middle of the century, the
Know-Nothings had realized significant political success, winning more than a hundred congressional seats and coming to dominate some state governments.

At the same time that these Nativist attitudes were fermenting, activists such as Horace Mann were pushing for the growth of "common schools" in which the youth of the nation could be taught in matters of faith, as well as in fundamental courses of study. These educators sought to find a sort of moral "common denominator" — a set of basic Christian principles to which all Protestant denominations could agree, and which would then be used as part of the curriculum. It was assumed that such a system should be considered "non-sectarian," because no one denomination could exert any special authority for its doctrines and, as a result (according to Mann himself), "[the] system earnestly inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its morals on the basis of religion; it welcomes the religion of the Bible; it allows it to do what it is allowed in no other system, to speak for itself."

To be sure, Mann’s schools required daily reading of the King James Bible, but he viewed this as no more than neutrally presenting the text and allowing the students to draw their own conclusions from it. In the minds of the Protestant majority, this distinguished the educational practice of the common schools from "sectarianism," in which a religious authority indoctrinated the students by exegeting the text for them.

The groundswell of Catholic students posed a serious problem for the common schools, however, because the religious convictions the immigrants brought with them from Europe were not easily compatible with the standardized Christianity advanced by the schools. The conflict is exemplified by the situation New York faced in 1842. As was the case in Mann’s Massachusetts, it was the policy of the New York Public School Society to have the King James version of the Bible — which was forbidden by the Catholic Church — read in their classrooms, and certain textbooks included historical characterizations that were repugnant to Catholics. The Catholics, under the guidance of Bishop "Dagger John" Hughes, demanded public support for their own schools. They initially won some concessions from the Public School Society, but ultimately the legislature created a City Board of Education to establish new public schools and acted to bar the public funding of "sectarian" schools.

A decade later, similar Catholic efforts in other states were labeled as attempts to "destroy public education" or "subvert basic American principles." These accusations coincided with the rise of the Know-Nothing Party during the election of 1854. Its action against Catholic interests was wide-ranging and swift where they had gained the necessary authority. After their sweeping victory in Massachusetts, the Know-Nothings proposed constitutional amendments that would have denied Roman Catholics the right to hold public office, and limited the franchise to males who had lived for at least 21 years in the United States. They dismissed Irish state-government workers, banned foreign-language instruction in the public schools, and established a special committee charged with the task of liberating women believed to be held captive in convents and nunneries, targeting as well "acts of villainy, injustice, and wrong [...] perpetrated with impunity within the walls of said institutions."

The anti-Catholic sentiment carried on beyond the demise of the Know-Nothings, though it was not as prominent during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. James G. Blaine arrived on the national political scene in 1863, having ridden a wave of anti-Catholic, Nativist support from his home in Maine to a seat in the House of Representatives. He served in the House for thirteen years, acting as the Speaker of the House from 1869-1875. True to his base of support, Congressman Blaine made it a personal quest to see that the doors of the public treasury were finally and unquestionably closed to Catholics who wanted money to establish tolerable alternatives to the Protestant-dominated public school system. When, in September 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant called for the passage of a constitutional amendment that would deny public funds to religious organizations, Blaine responded by proposing the constitutional amendment that would come to bear his name, and which he hoped would catapult him to the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 1876. It read:

No state shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the exercise thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefore, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations.

Despite Blaine’s failure to get his amendment added to the federal Constitution, the influence of his cause did not disappear; it simply changed form. While Blaine’s supporters could not command the votes necessary for a federal amendment, they
did have the requisite votes to set the terms for new states’ admission into the union. In some incoming states, popular sentiment alone led to the passage of a Blaine Amendment. For others, however, Congress utilized its continuing anti-Catholic sentiment by requiring territories applying for statehood to include a provision in their new state constitution that would echo the restrictions of the Blaine Amendment.

These constitutional provisions are relics of anti-Catholic bigotry. They reflect some of the worst impulses in the human character — exclusion and discrimination against those who may think or believe differently from the mainstream — and they are directly contrary to the ideals of the First Amendment, which guarantees a right to the free exercise of religion without exclusion from generally available governmental benefits.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board is certainly capable of surprises, and this morning’s editorial about Amtrak is one such instance. I don’t have much to add; mostly, I just wanted to highlight it here because, you know, we get a lot more traffic than some old dead-tree newspaper. As they put it:

As to the rest of it, that should be Amtrak’s problem, not the taxpayers’. Taxpayers already are paying 80 percent of the cost of hauling an Amtrak passenger across the state. That’s enough. Outside of the crowded eastern corridor, passenger trains no longer make economic sense.

Facts are facts, unfortunate as they may be to someone who loves trains, like I do. It would be fabulous to somehow fix the problems and allow Amtrak to be on time with its trains, but I don’t see why taxpayers, rather than riders, should fund those fixes. It’s hard enough to argue in favor of keeping the subsidy at the current level, as the romantic in me supports, but increasing it would be wholly irresponsible.

Amazon.com, the world’s largest Internet retailer, recently
announced its intention to sell wine through its online marketplace, a venture
that is sure to bring good, cheap wine to the masses and establish the
Seattle-based company as one of the country’s largest wine retailers. This
fact is great news for oenophiles in Missouri,
as the states’ direct-shipment laws allow for any out-of-state retailer or
manufacturer to ship up to two cases of wine per month to any customer without
restriction (and more if a special excise license is procured, which it almost
certainly will be).

However, what if wine just seems a little too “fancy” for
your next adventure across the Lake of the Ozarks Community Bridge to a certain section of Camden County, and you don’t want to deal with the hassle of
visiting your neighborhood gas station/pharmacy/liquor store/grocery store to
pick up a few cans of Missouri’s official beverage? Can’t it just be delivered to your home?

Actually, no. Anheuser-Busch (along with every other brewery
and distillery in the state) cannot ship directly to consumers. The reason
for this happens to be the same reason that people in Kansas and Utah won’t be able to take advantage of Amazon’s most recent business venture: After
prohibition, almost all states in the union moved to what is now known as the
three-tier distribution system, composed of manufacturers, distributors, and
retailers of alcoholic beverages. This system was designed to ease the states
back into alcohol consumption, and to further regulate companies like A-B.
However, its separation has led to the notion that producers cannot sell
directly to consumers. In Kansas,
this means that wine can’t be delivered directly to your home. In Missouri (thanks to the
input of a remarkably powerful wine lobby) it can, but you still have to buy
your beer at the store, because the beer lobby is more concerned with other things. This isn’t a big deal if you want to get a Budweiser,
but if you’re in Kansas City and you want to sample the latest Schlafly Reserve, or you’re stuck in Saint Louis without a
special kind of Boulevard, you’re out of luck.

The only solution to this problem? Eliminate the three-tier
system and allow manufacturers to sell directly to customers. This will keep
prices down for consumers and allow for more freedom for direct-delivery
purchases, for both beer and for wine. I really doubt anyone at A-B would be
sad if they were able to sell direct, both because revenue would skyrocket and
because no midlevel jobs would be lost — distributors of A-B products are all
monopolistic in their sale of the company’s products as is. Meanwhile, all of Missouri’s smaller
breweries would no doubt see an increase in business as their distribution
areas grew. How can this not be a good thing?

There’s an interesting article in the Star today about the proposal for a shared, regionally built jail for the Kansas City area. I think this is a great idea and an opportunity for shared investment. Regional jails have worked very well in Saint Louis County and city. The county jail in St. Louis, which was initially paid for by the county via a bond issue but is used by all the municipalities, has worked out great. In St. Louis city, there are two jails. The new city jail is just for the city itself, although I think the feds pay to house some prisoners there on a temporary basis. But the lower-security city workhouse up on Hall Street houses low-risk prisoners who can’t pay their fines or restitutions from others counties, too, and that works out well for the city’s finances.

Jails are one of the few areas where I would generally be against privatization — although some services within jails should certainly be outsourced and privatized, such as the pharmacy. Consolidation is the key to efficient use of tax dollars for jails, and it’s great that the Kansas City area may be moving in that direction. Just as St. Louis County put its jail right next to its other government buildings, I think Kansas City should build a 20-story art deco jail right next to City Hall and the courthouse. Now, that would be sweet.

Thanks to Janese Heavin’s excellent coverage on her Class Notes blog, I’ve been keeping an eye on the drama surrounding the Columbia School Board’s pursuit of an 11-percent increase in the district’s school tax levy. Much of the controversy has been rooted in the fact that the school board drew $10.3 million from its reserves to pay first-year salaries for 70 newly-hired positions, knowing that the salaries could not be sustained without an increase in the levy.

But the whole story took a rather baffling twist with remarks made by one of the school board’s members at a recent forum for school board candidates:

“We didn’t think it would be prudent to come to taxpayers and ask for
an increase with” $36 million “in reserves,” he told about 20 attendees
at an NAACP-sponsored forum for school board candidates. “We spent them
down purposefully. We did that with the full understanding that we
would have to make decisions about how to cut costs or seek a levy. …
It was a prudent decision to spend down reserves first.”

This is a classic case of the "better to ask forgiveness than permission" mentality. The school board knew that Columbia’s taxpayers would not willingly shoulder an additional tax burden, so they hired first — hoping the move would force taxpayers to accept an increase in taxes. With the hires made and the new personnel already present in the schools, the board was betting that the citizens would not call its bluff.

As appalling as this tactic is, there is a rather mystifying point that also needs to be highlighted: Columbia’s School Board, surprisingly, seems to be quite good about meeting its budget on a year-to-year basis. The district has ended nine of the last 10 years with a surplus, building its reserve from about 13 percent in ‘96–’97 to nearly 25 percent before last year’s $10.3-million hiring spree. To be sure, the budget itself is bloated by certain unnecessary expenditures, but I would be thrilled if other public school districts consistently kept within their budgets. April’s election in Columbia will tell us whether the city’s voters are sufficiently impressed with the school board’s stewardship that they’ll overlook the shady planning of the board members.

An editorial in the Southeast Missourian (link via Combest) compares the proposed sales tax holiday to cough syrup:

A statewide proposal to create a sales-tax holiday in late June to stimulate the economy is drawing criticism. You might compare the idea to taking cough syrup; it may not taste very good to some, but overall it will leave the economy feeling better.

This is an apt comparison, although not for the reason given in the editorial. Cough syrup temporarily makes you feel better, but it just masks a symptom; it doesn’t make your cold go away or improve your health in general. Likewise, a sales tax holiday appears to help the economy for a few days, but without doing any long-term good.

We’ve been very proud at the Show-Me Institute to be at the forefront of HSA reform in Missouri. The “new rules” of health care necessitate a more personal approach, one in which individuals manage their own health care needs directly.

But it’s not just SMI that believes in the market approach to health insurance. An article on CNN Money this morning is waving the HSA banner too. And really, when you think about it, how strange is it that the country has been so slow to embrace an open-market approach to health insurance in the first place? What continues to amaze me is that we as a nation continue to view health insurance premiums and coverage as “one size fits all.” How alien that would seem to us for any other type of insurance policy. Just think how much consumers have benefited as insurance has been deregulated in other markets.

In part, the CNN Money article chronicles Jason Jeffords of Bedford, NH. Jason pays $240/month for a high-deductible comprehensive health insurance plan for his entire family. His premium is determined by his own health risk and that of his family.

The catch is that Jason’s deductible is $10,000, meaning that all costs below that level are paid out of pocket. But that’s where HSAs come in. Similar to a 401k, Jason opened an HSA account through his employer, allowing him to contribute tax-free earnings each month. His employer ups the ante by contributing $5,800 annually. These funds can be withdrawn at any time to cover medical expenses that fall below Jason’s annual deductible (again, tax free). And the interest on Jason’s HSA earnings grows tax-free. If funds remain when he retires, they can be withdrawn exactly like in a 401k. They’re also portable, so Jason can change employers and still retain his benefits.

HSAs are the model for the future of health care. Employers are much better off contributing funds to their employees’ plans indirectly than financing their employee’s health care costs directly. And the portability and choice aspects allow families to better manage their health care as new needs arise. This solves the problem of the nation’s current uninsured (who generally must live sans insurance if their employer doesn’t provide it) while keeping costs under control. In other words, the nation’s current insured will no longer be able to abuse the system by having their costs subsidized through a diffusion of responsibility. It is this system that has priced so many people out of the insurance market to begin with.

Anyway, the article is a great read and I’ve rambled on long enough. The point is that a health care revolution is coming and people who choose to manage their own health care today are poised to be much more financially secure than those who wait until change is thrust upon them. Which group do you want to be in?

I’d like to apologize for the title, first off, as I really don’t like the word "deadbeat" — but the pun was too good to pass up.

The State of Illinois, as reported by this article in the Post-Dispatch, recently enacted a new policy that refuses to grant hunting or fishing licenses to fathers who are behind on child-support payments. As the article plainly explains:

A $14,000 child support check was handed Rachel Miller because the father of her two sons likes to hunt white-tail deer.

Apparently, though, the individuals who have been forced to make that choice aren’t too happy about the fact that the government is getting more involved with their affairs:

[The father] isn’t happy about the turn of events. He says the way the state works now, they’re in control of way too many things.

Child support, like most topics in family law, is a touchy subject. And while I agree that there should be some government impetus toward parental responsibility (if for no other reason than fathers should take care of their children, rather than passing that burden on to the state) I feel like options such as paycheck garnishment often go too far in restricting the freedoms of "deadbeat dads," who are not always as much to blame for an unfortunate family situation as the mother — but who still get stuck with the bill for children they’re often not allowed to see.

But that’s not what we’re talking about here.

If you want to make a claim against the fishing license, fine. But I think it’s pretty apparent that the State of Illinois is justified in restricting who runs around in the woods and shoots off a firearm or bow. Unless you’re hunting for food for the children who you owe child support to, the state should be able to restrict the activity of recreational hunting as a motivation for fathers to fulfill their lawful financial obligations.

This isn’t an issue of "oh, they can afford a hunting license, so they should be able to afford child support," because that’s a ridiculous comparison. A deer license in Illinois for 2008 costs $15, while child support payments are often in the thousands of dollars per month. This is a carrot and stick issue. Hunters want to hunt, but they need to tend to responsibilities before they can play.

Or, they could just take their children hunting with them … which might have solved the whole problem in the first place. Just a thought.

There is such a thing as too much milk, even if it does a blog good, so I’ll move on to another topic. The Post-Dispatch has an article about a city reviewing the results of its use of red-light cameras to improve safety make money. At the very least, we can credit the St. Peters Police Department for taking a hard look at the results of the cameras, and for trying to ensure the owner is also the driver. And while they point to a reduction in accidents at intersections, they admit they can’t credit it to the cameras — and also that they have no measure of the increased rear-end collisions at the same places. From the article (emphasis added in all excerpts):

But there was a piece of good news. The number of traffic crashes in St. Peters dropped 34 percent between 2005 and 2007 — though the report acknowledged that attributing the decline solely to red light cameras is problematic.

"While experiencing a reduction in crashes both citywide and at the target sites, the impact of red light photo enforcement on driver behavior may be difficult, if not impossible, to quantify," the report said.

Some studies have found that while red light cameras can help reduce side crashes, they can increase the number of rear-end accidents, as drivers slam on their brakes to keep from setting off the cameras.

Townsend said St. Peters has yet to determine whether the number of rear-end accidents has gone up.

In fact, the cameras do increase rear-end collisions — as several studies have shown. I don’t think anyone would deny that an increase in people covering their faces as they go through intersections is a bad thing. This can’t help but lead to an increase in accidents of just about any type, from front-end collisions to Dukes of Hazzard–style river jumping:

Police refer to them as "duckers" — drivers who try to shield their faces from red light cameras as they run signals at intersections watched 24/7 by electronic traffic enforcers.

The city of St. Louis maintains no such pretense of making sure the owner is the actual driver, nor do officials even pretend to care about anything other than raising revenue:

[T]he city of St. Louis is pulling in substantial revenue. Of nearly $2 million in total ticket revenue in the past year, the city has kept about $1.6 million, said Ron Smith, the city’s operations director.

Cameras in St. Louis don’t take pictures of drivers’ faces, so the city does not have the problem with duckers that St. Peters faces.

To be fair, if you go to court in the city and swear under penalty of perjury that you were not the driver, you can get the ticket dismissed. The best thing about people in local government is being able to watch your neighbors work to build a better community, and dedicate large amounts of time and effort to their city. The worst thing about some (not all, just some) of the people in local government is that they are all about the immediate and local issues, and have no knowledge of — or, more likely, just don’t care about — broader issues, like how red-light cameras and eminent domain abuse take away our liberty, piece by piece. (In the case of cameras, its the liberty to be presumed innocent that’s under assault, among other things.) So I hope we see an end to red-light cameras sometime soon.

My colleagues have done an excellent job of demonstrating the unconstitutionality and general craziness of the proposal to forbid labeling milk "hormone free." I’d like to point out that if we follow this line of reasoning, we’ll have to change the labels on all other breakfast foods, too:

• Cereal will no longer be labeled as "crunchy" or "crispy," because that implies other cereals are soggy.
• Eggs will no longer be labeled "free-range," because that implies some hens are raised in tight spaces.
• No more golden delicious apples, because that implies other apples are not tasty.
• No more "I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter," because that implies you could believe that other butter substitutes are just substitutes.

In short, this proposal is just as bad as the FDA’s idea to forbid labeling suncreens above SPF 30, because it implies that the higher SPF sunscreens offer more protection … even though they do.

The St. Joseph News-Press has a report today (spotted via John Combest) about two bills before the General Assembly that would prohibit certain truthful labeling on dairy products. As the story points out, these bills have nothing to do with the contents of the milk bottles — they just prohibit how milk producers would be allowed to label their products.

This is a very important matter for many smaller dairy producers because, with so many large dairies utilizing hormones or other chemicals to increase their cows’ output, the smaller operations want to assure consumers that their milk is not produced using such methods. It’s a selling point that both helps the farmers differentiate their product from similar products and helps consumers make informed decisions about the food they are buying for their family. If a customer would prefer to purchase products that have not been produced with the use of certain hormones or chemicals, why on earth would the General Assembly try to prevent dairy farmers from providing the relevant information?

Special interests. And, unfortunately, they seem to be well-served by the bills currently under consideration. These bills are essentially geared to prevent large hormone- and chemical-using dairies from unwanted competition by the smaller guys — but they also specifically exempt dairy producers using "organic farming," as defined by the state. Organic farmers will love this, because they can continue to realize the benefits of differentiating their products from the large producers without having to compete for consumers against small non-organic dairies. Thus, the bill’s advocates can achieve their goals while minimizing opposition.

In addition to being terrible policy, this scheme is unconstitutional. Both the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article I, section 8, of the Missouri Constitution protect freedom of expression — including commercial speech. These constitutional provisions safeguard the right to advertise truthfully about a product, so long as the product itself is legal and the advertisement does not mislead consumers about its attributes. The labels that would be banned by these bills are well within the constitutions’ protections because they merely make an accurate statement about the contents of the products therein. And even if it were found that a dairy producer’s labeling was false, the proper solution would be to punish the falsehood rather than to prohibit other producers from placing truthful labels on their products.

Mr. Combest has the link to a St. Joseph News-Press story on an absolutely ludicrous idea that combines the worst parts of the nanny state with the worst of rent seeking. Can you believe that some people, in 2008 … in America … think they have the right to produce milk without hormones, and to actually put a label on the milk saying that? If we allow this, pretty soon we’ll have to let liquor stores say they have the "coldest beer in town" even if they can not prove with certainty that it is, indeed, the coldest in town. Perhaps there is a legitimate reason why small dairy farmers should be prevented from labeling their milk "hormone free" — which it is — other than pressure from lobbyists for larger dairy farmers, but I can’t possibly imagine what that reason would be. At least one consumer quoted in the story understands capitalism and liberty:

"It’s my choice, whether it’s healthier or not,” Karen Schaefer said as she grabbed two bottles of Shatto milk from the dairy case. “If they don’t use the hormones, they should be allowed to say that.”

A supporter of the proposed ban on labeling hormone-free milk as hormone-free has a less clear understanding of such things — or perhaps he does understand, but just wants to throw up as many roadblocks as possible for his competition:

“In saying their milk doesn’t contain something, they are implying that other products do, which often isn’t the case,” Mr. Hegeman said.

So the fact that the small producers might IMPLY something (this must be said like Chris Penn in Reservoir Dogs) is now grounds to limit their freedom? This has to be the most unconstitutional proposal in Missouri since Ladue tried to ban signs protesting the Gulf War from someone’s yard. (This must be said like Lionel Hutz, attorney at law. I am not going to say where Lionel Hutz comes from, because if you don’t know, I have no desire to associate with you.)

I should be more careful about what I say on this blog, because when I make crazy suggestions, people take my advice. When I asked whether longer sales tax holidays might be better than three-day ones, that was a rhetorical question. But now Illinois legislators are proposing a 10-day sales tax holiday to help people out with their back-to-school shopping in August. I predict that people will rearrange their shopping days to buy things during those 10 days, rather than later in the month. Kind of like how they react to Missouri’s sales tax holiday, only spread over a longer time period.

I hope Missouri and Illinois aren’t going to engage in an arms race of longer and longer sales tax holidays. If a state decides its sale tax is too onerous, it can lower the rate. That would help people and the economy all year round, and people wouldn’t have to change their shopping schedules in August.

The nation was stunned in 2005 when the United States Supreme Court ruled that the United States Constitution allowed the City of New London, Conn., to force its citizens out of their homes simply because the city thought it could generate more taxes if their modest residences were replaced with luxury condominiums and high-end retail stores. The popular outrage against the Supreme Court’s decision resulted in a widespread effort (in which the Show-Me Institute’s director of policy, Jenifer Zeigler Roland, played a major role) to make sure that Kelo could not happen in other states.

Unfortunately, as has been demonstrated by a recent court decision, Missouri was among the states whose eminent domain reforms merely rearranged deck chairs on the Titanic. Unless the Missouri Supreme Court proved willing to restore the property rights guaranteed by the state’s Constitution, cities and agencies across the state could continue to take perfectly normal properties in order to give them away for the profit of a governmentally preferred owner. With last week’s unfortunate decision in City of Arnold v. Tourkakis, (and kudos to Nick for an excellent post on this topic) it seems unlikely that the Missouri Supreme Court is willing to prevent the eminent domain abuse that currently plagues this state.

This abandonment of property rights is deeply unsettling. As a nation — and as individual states — Americans adopted Bills of Rights
in order to make sure that certain essential liberties would never be
subject to restriction or elimination. Among those freedoms is the
assurance that governments have no right to take away someone’s
property unless it is required for the construction of a road or public
building. The real-life consequences when the government does take
someone’s property illustrate why this power must be tightly limited.

Eminent
domain is rarely threatened against wealthy people or those who can
fight back. Instead, the usual targets are communities composed of
minorities, the poor, and/or the elderly. In the middle of the
20th century, cities so regularly used eminent domain against black
neighborhoods that the practice was commonly referred to as "Negro
removal." That offensive label eventually fell out of use, but poor
black communities continue to be condemned far more frequently than
white communities. A 1989 study estimated that of 10,000 families that
Baltimore displaced in the name of removing blight, fully 90 percent
were African-American. Mindy Fullilove, an expert on the impact of
eminent domain on minority communities, estimates that more than 1,600
black neighborhoods have been destroyed nationwide.

But then there are elderly people. In Kelo v. New London, Wilhelmina Dery was an 87-year-old still living in her family
home, in which she was born. All she wanted was to live out her final
days in those beloved, familiar settings. She eventually did get her wish, but only because
she died before the city got its chance to kick her out of her home.

In
Norwood, Ohio, the city took the residence of Carl and Joy Gamble, an older couple who received their
condemnation notice just days after they were finally able to retire.
They were uprooted from the home in which they had raised their family
and built their American Dream, and separated from their nearby family and
friends, after which they moved into a small apartment with a daughter in Kentucky. After a
grueling three-year legal war, the Ohio Supreme Court vindicated their
rights, but the stress drove Carl to his grave and left Joy in such
delicate health that she couldn’t return to the home she had sacrificed
so much to save.

I was recently told
about an elderly couple in Rolla who weren’t physically able to cope
with a move when they were threatened with eminent domain. The wife had
Alzheimer’s disease and the husband was terrified to complicate her
dementia by moving her to an unfamiliar environment. Unmoved by their
plight, the city tried to make it look like they were just holding out
for more money. One councilmember said they should just move to a
nursing home.

Someone’s home
represents their stability and shelter, both in physical and emotional
ways. It is the centering location in their life, the place to which
they should be able to return each day and know that they have their
own place in the world. These things are especially precious for
people who can claim ownership of very little else. But rather than
protecting the rights of these citizens, both courts and legislatures have been content to
sacrifice their security in the name of "progress," or — more coarsely — so they can
be replaced with a wealthier, "more desirable" class of people.

Eminent domain abuse is not just unconstitutional — it is unjust, immoral, and abhorrent. And, assuming that Missouri’s lawmakers and courts will continue to stand by as more and more home and business owners are wrecked by these abuses, the people of this state will have no choice but to
amend the state Constitution in the hopes of restoring the security that should be an American birthright.

To combat childhood obesity, school districts across the country have adopted ever-more-draconian measures to ensure that students are provided with a “healthy diet” throughout their school day.

While I take no issue with schools encouraging healthy eating habits (certainly, I think this is a good thing), I do object to some of the more stringent measures that schools have chosen to take, such as zero tolerance policies. Mostly, my objections stem from the fact that I am fundamentally opposed to omnipresent “father knows best” statist policy, in which the state tells people how they should or should not run their lives. But it’s not just that I object to the terms of such measures, it’s that enforcement of such standards is practically impossible. Schools should recognize that it is up to parents to instill good eating habits in their children, and not the responsibility of the schools themselves. Because despite school districts’ best efforts to prevent “unhealthy food” in their schools, where there’s a will there’s a way.

Case in point: A California-based newspaper details the ever-growing black market for candy among grade-school students. Of course, this is old news to young’ns like me. I remember my own candy racketeering in middle school. Of course, I was only a candy runner in those days (I helped deliver it), not the actual candy supplier (that is, I didn’t keep it in my locker … those kids got suspended).

If SMI addressed social issues, I might argue that this logic unfortunately carries forward to the adult world, as well. But mostly, I think it is interesting how even children understand fundamental economics. That is, when schools (or government officials) limit supply amid strong consumer demand, they make it very profitable for black-market suppliers to deliver their product.

Frenchtown, a historic French quarter of St. Charles, is the latest challenger of spurious eminent domain abuse.

In 2006, the St. Charles City Council voted to designate 15 acres of land in the Frenchtown area as “blighted.” Once again, the rationale for the “blight” designation had little to do with actual urban decay. Rather, it was ostensibly seen as little more than a policy tool to award property tax break incentives to wealthy developers. For a review of Missouri eminent domain abuse, I remind readers to check out Tim Lee’s comprehensive study.

The worst part of the story, however, is the shameless defense by the city’s eminent domain advocates:

Supporters of the measure argued that a large-scale effort was needed to combat longstanding decay and that a piecemeal approach [...] wouldn’t work. They said eminent domain was a last-resort tactic that probably wouldn’t be used in most cases.

And yet these same advocates argue that eminent domain should be used in this situation. But what keeps future developers from appealing to the same logic? Surely, the eminent domain advocates recognize the slippery slope they have created. If property rights aren’t constitutionally protected, then there’s no reason to believe that any developer’s assets will be any more secure than the property they originally usurped.

What incentive do businesses have to relocate to a district that has already set a precedent for eminent domain abuses? What about the Homer Tourkakises of the world? Entrepreneurs who invest their time and savings into developing a vibrant business in St. Charles are now at the mercy of future political whims. Eminent domain doesn’t strengthen property values, it destroys them.

Who is the better steward of land resources: the vested individual with a business interest, or an unelected bureaucrat with a vision?

The Kansas City Star continues its thorough coverage of the budget situation in KC with a clarifying and honest article about the background of the budget problems — albeit one presented in a mildly annoying Q&A format. Don’t get me wrong, the strengths of the article far outweigh the format, and at least Q&A is better than the worst writing format of all: the pathetic "5 myths about something or other." But back to the budget.

The most important part is right in the beginning (emphasis added for all following excerpts):

Q: How did the city get into this mess?

A: The bottom line is that, for years, Kansas City’s expenses have grown faster than its revenues. Since the 1970s, the city’s population has dropped from more than 500,000 to about 450,000. Its infrastructure needs have increased substantially, and revenue growth has not kept pace with inflation. The city provides millions of dollars for indigent health care and other social and cultural services that the suburbs don’t have. Since early 2000, Kansas City has also taken on mounting debt obligations and guaranteed incentive payments to developers.

Meanwhile, gasoline costs are skyrocketing and the city must spend more for pensions, health care and salary raises. Although the city downsized in 2003, the work force has crept back up from 4,344 in 2005 to 4,678 currently.

Too many TIFs and too many city employees are obviously a recipe for budget deficits, but I object to the theoretical aspects of the problem just as much as I object to the budget realities. Too many government employees are there intentionally, as part of political machines, designed to be kept on the payroll for the benefit of the governing faction. This is true even in civil service positions, because civil service employees are usually going to want to grow government for their own benefits as much as patronage employees do. (Do not take this as a criticism of civil service rules; they are clearly preferable to patronage.) Too many TIFs, or other abatements, play into the idea that the government — rather than the market — knows what the economy of Kansas City needs, by granting favors to certain plans but not others. Next point in the article:

Q: What are the main proposals to cut spending?

A: Funkhouser would slash the zoo and Liberty Memorial subsidies, eliminate 220 jobs, and close the jail and the animal shelter. At the same time, he would add $10 million for street paving, hire 20 new police officers and spend $200,000 on a citywide education summit.

City Manager Wayne Cauthen initially recommended using a $14.6 million wireless telephone settlement and across-the-board department cuts to help balance the budget. Critics said Cauthen papered over the city’s problems; he has since submitted alternatives.

Last week, Finance Committee Chairwoman Deb Hermann and Vice Chairwoman Jan Marcason submitted a compromise that pared back Funkhouser’s harshest cuts but cautioned against Cauthen’s optimistic revenue projections. It includes many difficult choices. A committee narrowly sent that plan on to the full council.

I commend the mayor for his proposal to cut government jobs, for reasons discussed above. If a job is not necessary, you should eliminate it rather than just keep someone on for the benefit of the machine — or to be nice, on the taxpayer’s dime. I think that outsourcing such things as the jail and animal shelter are worth strong consideration, but I don’t know enough about the exact details of both to argue for or against closing them. And I don’t think that now is the right time to fund a new summit of any kind, be it talking about education or climbing Taum Sauk.

Certainly, the cell phone settlement will help — as well as provide regular revenues in the future — but using a one-time windfall to close a problem just moves the problem to next year, when it may be even greater. By making the tough choices now, the Kansas City administration and council are doing what they were elected to do. I find it very impressive.

An article in the Post-Dispatch summarizes the various proposals on cyber-bullying that the Missouri and Illinois legislatures are considering. Like all the other proposals I’ve seen on this issue, these would be difficult to enforce and probably wouldn’t have prevented the Megan Meier tragedy had they been law in 2006. Here’s an example:

One lawmaker has suggested making it a felony for any adult to have electronic contact that "demonstrates a knowing disregard for the health, safety and welfare" of the child.

How can you tell whether the disregard is knowing or not? But at least that proposal just forbids bad behavior (albeit ambiguously) — other ideas out there would establish new programs and requirements only tangentially related to what happened to Megan Meier. One bill would require public schools to institute policies about online bullying, never mind that Megan’s alleged harasser was an adult woman outside of the control of public school administrators.

These legislators are well-intentioned, but the most effective protection against online bullies are watchful parents.

Today is the application deadline for summer internships at the Show-Me Institute. But, because we’re so nice, we’ll continue to accept applications through Monday.

If you know any college students who may be interested, be sure to let them know. If you’re a college student currently on the fence about whether you should apply, perhaps this testimonial from our former intern Steve Bernstetter will push you over the edge:

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.

Well said, Steve. Again.

There are several bills in the General Assembly this session concerning teacher pay. Generally, I find these bills fairly annoying because they have few qualifying requirements (such as merit pay, etc.).

A new proposal by Rep. Denis Holsman (D-Kansas City) appears, at first glance, to address teacher pay — particularly in rural districts — without providing across-the-board pay increases. Upon further reflection, though, it fails to fundamentally address the root incentive problems.

Among the bill’s merit provisions (from the Post-Dispatch’s coverage):

• A voluntary grant given to school districts based on test scores and teacher performance. A majority of teachers in each district would have to vote to accept the grant.
• One-time $5,000 stipends for teachers in small schools who have reached 10 and 20 years of service.
• Recruitment bonuses of $5,000 for new teachers in small or unaccredited school districts. Math and science teachers would receive $7,500.
• Retention bonuses ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 for teachers who stay at a small school district for 5, 10 and 20 years.
• A $2,500 stipend for teachers in a district that moves from being unaccredited to accredited by the state Board of Education.
• Monthly bonuses for retired teachers older than 75 whose cost-of-living adjustments are capped.

The first point is a throwaway provision to satisfy the merit-pay advocates. Individual teachers should be able to decide whether their compensation is based on their individual performance; it should not be left to the discretion of a monopolistic cartel. The majority of teachers will not vote to accept merit pay, because without merit pay, bad teachers will receive the same pay as good teachers — a tragedy of any state-run enterprise. Worse, this provision provides perverse incentives for good teachers because it discourages them from remaining in a profession where their performance quality is under-recognized. And if Missouri’s aggregate public school performance is any indication of teacher quality, there are far more bad teachers in the state than good.

The retention bonuses are also a mistake. Research indicates (as evidenced by Dr. Hanushek, the nation’s foremost education scholar) that there is little improvement in teacher performance past the two- or three-year mark (in fact, the relationship may actually be negative). So there’s little reason to reward teachers’ tenure without a corresponding performance metric. This is really the critical juncture in the teacher compensation problem. Good teachers should be rewarded for their efforts, and bad teachers should not. The teacher unions have spent years hypothesizing that tenure is a measure of teacher success, when in fact there is little evidence to suggest that this is true.

The math/science recruitment bonuses are a step in the "market" direction. If these skill areas are the ones that need the most improvement, it makes sense that these should be the areas where more money is spent. But, again, basic math and science skills should be a fundamental part of Missouri education — not something achieved only at a premium.

The worst provision, in my opinion, is the monthly bonuses for retired teachers. How will increasing retirees’ pensions improve the quality of education in Missouri?

There are some good elements of this bill (it does, nominally at least, address the merit issue), but on the whole it does nothing but increase costs without linking them to improvement in quality. Missourians — and Missouri teachers — deserve better.

This category may well be as small as an Airplane-style leaflet, but we had an example last week with the defeat of the proposed Segway ordinance by the City Board of Aldermen’s Parks Committee. The West End Word has the story here and here. Alderman Kacie Starr Triplett lays it out very nicely:

"Alderman Krewson’s bill is extremely protectionist, and that’s not a good precedent to set in the city," said Sixth Ward Alderman Kacie Starr Triplett.

Unfortunately, I think the precedent for protectionism in the city is well established in the code, but that’s not Alderman Triplett’s fault. If this statement and the defeat of the Segway bill are an indication of the views of Alderman Triplett and other young members of the board, politics in the City of St. Louis may well have a very bright future.

The Federalist Society has released a study investigating the correlation between states with a merit selection judiciary (the so-called “Missouri plan” model) and school finance litigation.

The “Missouri Plan” amended the state Constitution such that judicial nominations are selected — at least in part — through an independent nominating counsel (generally comprising state American Bar Association-appointed lawyers) instead of by popular election. Today, 26 states have adopted some form of the “Missouri Plan” for their judicial appointments.

The legal benefits of the “Missouri Plan” are debatable. Many studies have examined the impact of such plans on business-friendly legislation (the argument being that judicial nominations appointed by ABA members will be less friendly to issues that might limit the market for lawyers). In fact, in an upcoming policy report, the Show-Me Institute will examine the Missouri Plan in detail. (Stay tuned for the excitement!)

The Federalist Society’s research highlights at least one negative aspect, however. To date, 45 states have addressed education adequacy litigation. According to data gathered by Columbia University, about two-thirds of adequacy decisions in Missouri Plan states strike down the legislatures’ funding statutes. This means that courts have effectively commandeered the power of the purse — something clearly within the proper domain of the legislatures.

In addition, in a joint study by the Institute for Justice and the American Legislative Exchange Council, analysts found that school voucher systems are constitutional in 77 percent of states with popularly elected judiciaries, versus 50 percent in Missouri Plan states.

So I guess this was a long way of me saying that there is evidence that courts are friendlier to the school choice movement in states where judges are elected by the people themselves.