At Cato-at-Liberty, Andrew J. Coulson and Neal McCluskey respond to Chester E. Finn, Jr.’s criticism of free-market education reform. This criticism takes the form of a quick blog post replying to a book review, rather than a developed argument, but his contention has been brought up by many people so it’s worth addressing. According to Finn, free-market reformers are trying to destroy public education based on crazy philosophies, with no regard for evidence.

As Coulson points out, free-market proposals like tuition tax credits are not incompatible with the ideals of public education, such as preparing children for citizenship. And Coulson has done extensive research on education markets around the world. I’m guessing that one reason people like Finn discredit that evidence is that it’s from other countries. Here in the U.S., the public education system has a tight hold on the education sector, and the only experience we have with a free-market system are a few limited voucher programs. People are then left to make judgments about free-market education from these programs (which are a good start, but not big enough to transform the education sector the way universal parental choice would).

Caroline Hoxby’s research on charter schools presents evidence that’s a bit closer to home. Although charter schools are still public schools, they face incentives more like the ones private schools face. Consequently, they do things differently from the traditional public schools. Here you can watch Hoxby explain why incentives matter.

In short, there’s evidence that free-market reforms work. And there’s evidence that the traditional public system is failing — as Finn himself writes, the nation is "still at risk." That doesn’t look like a crazy philosophy to me.

I know Internet polls are just for fun, and one should not read anything into them, but that does not mean the people who design the polls should actively promote ignorance and errors. The poll today at stltoday.com does just that. If you go to the poll they have on the main page now, you’ll see that the question is, "Who do you blame for the economic slowdown?" They give you five choices: Congress, the president, the Federal Reserve, private business, or all of the above. This is just absurdity, and promotes a lack of understanding of economics. At least they could have given a sixth choice, along the lines of: "A series of events, often beyond the control of American policymakers, and including the natural movements of the business cycle, leading to a general slowdown in our economy."

This is not to say eveyone is blameless. I blame the president and Congress for overspending on programs of all types (particularly entitlement programs) that have us in such debt. Many private businesses and banks have made obvious mistakes with poorly researched loans. Left unmentioned in the poll is the responsibility of individual Americans who took out substantial loans they could not afford, certainly a prime cause of the housing problems we face. I don’t know why the banks get all the blame there. But to attempt to lay blame teaches people that the government controls the economy, which it does not, could not, and should not.

Look here for a story that ought to get any taxpayer’s blood boiling. The Post-Dispatch reports that the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles wants $100,000 to help it pursue some of its programs. Rather than, say, earning the money based on services provided to consumers, and rather than raising the money from appreciative patrons, the Centre’s first priority was to ask the city government for the desired funds. As Dick Sacks, the head of the Centre’s board, put it, "The obvious thing is to go to your daddy[.]" Sacks also said that the request for taxpayer funds was not because the Centre was "broke" or "in trouble," but rather the move was just "good fiscal planning."

I’m sure that many people (and businesses!) would be thrilled if they could figure out how to pursue their pet projects by having their government forcibly extract the funding from their neighbors. But to suggest that this sort of extortion represents "good fiscal planning" is especially sick at a time when so many of the people who would be compelled to bear those costs are already struggling to avoid foreclosure, or fill their gas tanks or grocery baskets.

The good, the bad, the depressingly ugly, a fistful of dollars, just a few dollars more, and once upon a time in Missouri.   

P.S. — Thanks to Combest for the links, MOPNS for the videos, and all the newspapers for the articles!

P.P.S. — Just to be clear, the "bad" refers to biodiesel mandates, not KY3, the latter of which I’m a big fan of.

Preschool education has been in the news lately, so I was interested to find this article in the Chicago Tribune. Here’s a word of warning about "universal" versus targeted preschool programs:

Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, said he feared focusing on universal prekindergarten—making preschool a middle-class entitlement—could divert help from low-income families that need it most.

"Why would we use scarce public dollars to subsidize all families if we know the biggest impact is with poor kids?" he said.

The article quotes James Heckman, too; Heckman is a Nobel laureate in economics who’s found that early childhood education has a large positive effect on social and academic outcomes when kids get older. I was disappointed that the article doesn’t mention Heckman’s support for voucher programs that would allow parents to choose between competing preschools. Just because the state subsidizes preschool for low-income children, that doesn’t mean it needs to reinvent the wheel and actually operate preschools, too.

If you are a fan of our blog you may not have seen some of the latest op-eds and other articles we have released lately on the main site. Sarah Brodsky has just sent out an article on the benefits of tuition tax-credits for children with autism.

Dr. Joe Haslag and Rex Sinquefield have written quite extensively on the Bombardier proposal before the Missouri General Assembly now, and have been among the few to actually run the numbers and question the deal’s assumptions.

Our soon-to-exit intern Nick Loyal and I co-wrote a piece on one of Missouri’s silliest and least defensible taxes: the local pool table tax. Ironically, the supervisor of the largest pool hall in the state of Missouri (as mentioned in the article), Fr. Hagan at St. Louis University High School, died a few days ago after decades of dedication to educaton and SLUH. "Nickel!"

I meant to write about this a few weeks ago when I first heard about it. Earlier this month, a Senate panel endorsed a bill to repeal Missouri’s mandatory helmet law.

This is one of those examples of a law designed to “protect Missourians from themselves.” Would I ride a motorcycle without a helmet? Absolutely not, are you crazy? But should I be allowed to? Yes.

Opponents argue that the law’s repeal will result in more highway deaths, possibly increasing taxpayer-funded health care costs and driving up insurance premiums.

I used to hold that insurance belief as well, until I looked into the evidence a little more. From what I’ve read, there is only weak evidence that seat belt and helmet laws decrease highway fatalities, and mixed evidence that safety device laws actually cause more erratic driving (potentially offsetting the decrease in premium costs).

The insurance argument is evoked a lot, and several state supreme courts have upheld the argument. To the best of my knowledge, however, there is no empirical connection between helmet laws and insurance premiums absent some circumstantial studies about long-term effects. I would also argue that the numbers most often cited are one-sided, focused on the cost of helmet repeal alone. They don’t address the cost borne by society for enforcement and installation of “mandated safety devices” — such as airbags, etc. — that taxpayers and individuals incur already (think of all those seatbelt law commercials and the amount of time police officers are forced to spend enforcing such laws rather than, say, preventing violent crimes).

So I could go either way on this. If the law does in fact lower taxpayer costs, then I might find it justified. I tend to believe, however, that the law’s primary intent is simply to “protect us from ourselves.”

State and local economic development officials, whom one might think would ostensibly be strong supporters of capitalism and markets, are far too often just rent-seeking enablers who are so neck-deep in the muck of the government-developer complex that tax credits, abatements, etc., become the normative features of their economic model. Imagine a Missouri economic field that involved low and consistently applied taxes, limited and reasonable regulation, a fair legal system, and an educated workforce. Sounds pretty good, huh? Well, not to economic development officials, who would no longer be needed in such a system. If taxes are low, they have nothing to give away except their own purpose for employment.

Lest you think I am being too harsh, I point you to these absolutely ludicrous comments in today’s St. Joseph News-Press:

“(Legislators) didn’t step up to the plate to get the race track. I don’t think they saw the real potential in it … They will have missed another opportunity. One of the biggest challenges we face is getting our legislators to think outside the box.”

So that is the worldview of at least one official, and probably many more. According to this worldview, it is the job of elected officials to direct who, what, where, when and how a business operates; it is the job of legislators to recruit and reward favored businesses, because only legislators and economic development officials know what is best for a community; and Missouri’s legislators were stupid several years ago when they did not give away enough taxpayer money to lure a favored business. There is no room here for market forces to be making these decisions — economic development officials and their largess have replaced markets as the deciders of what goes where, and they believe that is a good thing.

It should be clear to all that within the past decade or so tax giveaways have become the norm in Missouri and the rest of the country, rather than an exception to be used in truly dire cases. Now that tax credits, abatements, exemptions, etc., are the norm, every business figures them into its calculations. Businesses didn’t demand this from government. It was offered and accepted, the natural result of having government and business involved too closely for too long. The most indispensable people in this system are, of course, the government development officials — but now I’m getting out of economic policy and into philosophy.

I have no idea how to get out of this system. Of course, I want Missouri to stop — but in the interest of fairness, I want everyone to stop at exactly the same time, which will never happen voluntarily. Perhaps a federal constitutional amendment requiring that tax rates be consistent across districts is the only way to end these current practices. I would hope people see the insanity for what it is long before that.

And a shout out to Combest for the link! Congrats to he and Monica for their solid performance at trivia night on Saturday, where I believe they came in a very respectable third. As for which team won — well, that answer should be obvious. …

Well, not necessarily everywhere, but cash-strapped local governments across the country seem to be pushing significant property tax increases at a record pace.

This is particularly damaging to homeowners whose homes have lost significant value during the past two years (in some places by 20 to 30 percent, according to the Case-Schiller Index) but have not yet been reassessed.

In other words, a home that was worth $200,000 when it was last assessed might now be worth only $140,000. Not only are the existing homeowners paying property taxes on a property with an assessed value higher than the market would bear, but they are also due for a tax increase. Again, however, people only seem to clamor for reassessments when their homes have declined in value — not when they have appreciated (see David’s op-ed for some thoughts on Missouri’s rollback provisions).

The Wall Street Journal has a nice little image detailing median property taxes across the country.

The Missouri House of Representatives rejected a bill yesterday which would have cut the minimum wage rate for tipped restaurant employees from its current rate of $3.32 to $2.13, the same as the federal minimum wage.

When considering legislation, lawmakers should first address the following two questions: 1) Does the legislature even have the power to pass this law; and, 2) Will the law have the effect that it’s intended to have?

I would argue that most politicians don’t even consider the first question. But for the sake of argument, let’s say that they do and consider the second question. Will the higher minimum wage help or hurt restaurant employees?

The Wall Street Journal happened to profile the struggling restaurant industry the other day. Here’s what they found (emphasis added):

Adding to the pressure is a big jump in the minimum wage starting this summer, which will boost wages by 12% in some states.

That’s sent the industry into its worst slump in decades. Many chains have scaled back expansion plans or cut costs by skimping on things like extra sauce and free sour cream. Some are shuttering sites and laying off workers.

It’s tough to make the minimum wage when you don’t have a job in the first place. Studies have repeatedly found that minimum wage laws are harmful to employers and employees alike. And those that are hit the hardest are generally the least-skilled and least able to afford losing their jobs, rather than the teenager in suburbia saving up for a car. And let us also not forget that Missouri has one of the highest minimum wage rates among its state neighbors, making labor much more expensive in Missouri than, say, Tennessee.

Like everybody else, I wish that the government could be Santa Claus and magically give things out for free. But, unfortunately, they can’t be — which means that every piece of legislation has unintended consequences. In this case, it’s increased costs to a struggling industry amid a slowing economy. Are we helping or hurting restaurant employees?

An op-ed in the New York Times brings up the question of why the U.S. economy has done so well after years of public-school decline. Here’s the conclusion:

Indeed, a consensus seems to be emerging among educational experts around the world that American schools operate within the context of an enabling environment — an open economy, strong legal and banking systems, an entrepreneurial culture — conducive to economic progress.

To put it bluntly, American students may not know as much as their counterparts around the Pacific Rim, but our society allows them to make better use of what they do know.

This op-ed makes some important points, but it’s not the whole story. Yes, America’s free markets and stable legal environment can make up (to some extent) for a poor education system. That’s not because knowledge doesn’t matter in our economy like it does in the rest of the world. Instead, the best-educated make lots of money, bringing up average income statistics. And they spend some of that money on services provided by their less-educated citizens. So, when some kids are stuck in a failing education system, it doesn’t bring down the entire economy — but it’s unfortunate for them. They’ll have to spend the rest of their lives working for the people with knowledge.

Our education system hasn’t killed the economy. Is that the best we can do? Surely our goal is to share the pleasures and opportunities of learning as widely as possible — not just to avert market collapse.

The governor gave a series of speeches yesterday about the results of tort reform legislation that was passed in 2005. Combest has links to several articles about it. In my opinion, that legislation was the most important reform the state has made during the past 20 years, which luckily corresponds with my basic frame of reference.

Not surprisingly, the trial lawyers they quote in the article (actually, it’s the same one in each) don’t agree. And, even less surprisingly, the trial lawyers respond to facts and economics with a plea to the heart. From the article Southeast Missourian (all emphasis below is added):

Blunt said 2007 numbers were not available, but that from 2005 to 2006, average settlement costs fell nearly 14 percent, and total claims against Missouri doctors dropped by 61 percent.

Costs and claims falling is a good thing for our economy and health care system.  Let’s remember that, can we please? From the Columbia Daily-Tribune:

Dr. Jeff Thomasson, who spoke at the news conference, said that before the new law, his radiology group’s premiums rose 88 percent one year and 94 percent another year. Over the past two years, the premiums declined slightly, Thomasson said. As a result, he believes recruiting and retaining good doctors is easier.

That is extremely important. I specifically remember that during arguments I had about tort reform with trial lawyers (generally either my dad or my stepdad), they claimed doctors’ premiums would never actually go down because the entire reform was just a scam by the insurance companies, etc. (They probably said it much better than that, but that was the gist of it.) So, here we have specific evidence that tort reform legislation has lead to a decrease in insurance premiums, just as basic economics indicated it would.

From the MATA people, we get this:

Vuylsteke said the number of cases are declining because the elderly, the poor and parents of young children "can’t find lawyers to handle their cases because the lawyers can’t afford to represent them." For many lawyers, who must invest substantial costs in expert witnesses and in hours preparing for the trial, the risk simply isn’t worth it, he said.

If someone has a good case, they will find a lawyer to take that case. Guaranteed. What is being admitted to above, unintentionally, is that before tort reform many bad cases went forward because the system so favored the plaintiffs. Even in less-than-stellar cases, a St. Louis city venue alone was good enough to scare at least some type of settlement out of the defense. So now we have lower costs, lower premiums, and fewer meritless lawsuits moving forward. As I said, it’s been great for Missouri.

I attended a meeting of the Jefferson County Charter Commission last night and testified before the committee about my thoughts on charter government, which we’ll put up on our website shortly. But that is not the point of this post. I just want to commend the members of the Charter Commission and the others in attendance for their dedication to their community. It was great to see people who cared deeply about their home working together to move Jefferson County forward.

Joe Ortwerth, the former county executive of St. Charles, gave an outstanding presentation about how his county went through the same process almost 20 years ago. Seeing him there gave me an opportunity to hand deliver him a copy of this op-ed about St. Charles, which he had to enjoy.

This is a worthwhile read: “They love the city, but not the schools.”

People want to move into the city. Urban renewal is obvious. But the schools have to get better. Young families are moving to the suburbs because they can’t afford to pay private school tuition equal to their monthly mortgage payment. St. Louis and Kansas City must fix their public school districts. Otherwise, all their efforts at urban renewal are useless.

Centene Corp. is in the news again. After the collapse of the Saint Louis ballpark village incentive proposal (which, in addition to $78 million in direct tax incentives, also included their very own “Centene” sales tax district), Clayton has attempted to renegotiate its own incentive package to entice the company to expand its world headquarters in Clayton’s business district (apparently everyone’s forgotten about Claytons attempt to confiscate property for Centene in 2005 through eminent domain).

One sentence in the Post-Dispatch’s coverage is worth highlighting:

State and St. Louis County officials have joined Clayton in discussions with Centene over incentives for its world headquarters expansion.

We cover corporate welfare extensively, so I won’t dwell on this issue (though you should read Dr. Joe Haslag’s recent op-ed on the topic). But I would like to make a point. I suspect that these kinds of government “incentive” shenanigans are what most people think of when they hear that someone — a politician, political party, or even a Clayton-based think-tank — is “pro-business” or "pro-market."

Enticing business through governmental handouts is not pro-business. This is crony capitalism and one of the most debased political ideologies in the world. Being “pro-business” means that you believe in creating a business environment in which property rights are well-protected, people are free to contract with one another freely and without governmental interference, and competition is encouraged. Pro-business does not mean using the government to reward or punish favored companies or industries. It does not mean using tax dollars to reward the rich and the powerful at the expense of the poor. There’s nothing "market-based" about that.

As I am writing this post on Thursday afternoon, I am not officially licensed to practice law in the state of Missouri. Tomorrow, when many of you will be reading this post, I will officially be licensed to practice law in this state. In order to convince the powers that be to give me their blessing to use my lawyering skills, in February I had to take and pass an arduous and mostly useless ritual called a bar exam. The test is insanely difficult, in no small part because it requires each examinee to demonstrate memorization of a range of legal concepts that they will likely never use in their practice. For example, even though my expertise is in constitutional litigation, I had to be prepared to answer — from memory — detailed questions related to wills and estates, family law, secured transactions, and commercial paper.

As with most people who have passed a bar exam, now that a couple of months have passed, I probably couldn’t tell you much at all about those subjects without first doing some research about the question asked — which is, in fact, what attorneys tend to do in the real world! In short, my ability to earn a living in the profession for which I am trained depended on my developing a (short-lived) command of information that would be thoroughly useless to me after the exam.

All of that is to say that the idea of licensing attorneys is little more than a convoluted way of restricting the services available to consumers and bolstering the rates we are allowed to charge clients, all under the guise of "protecting the public." Well, that’s just silly and patronizing. People recognize the difference between gourmet restaurants and street hot dog vendors, and they can also recognize the difference between a white-shoe law firm whose attorneys graduated from Ivy League schools and a small-time local lawyer who went to night school so he could learn just enough to hang out his own shingle.

I’ll happily admit that there are some bad attorneys out there already, and that there would likely be more if you didn’t have to get permission from the state in order to practice. But academic credentials and a license from the state is no guarantee of quality, just as many fine, smart lawyers might have trouble passing the bar exam. In fact, the people most likely to hire a lawyer with questionable credentials are those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford legal representation at all. So the issue really boils down to why the state should be in a position to tell citizens that they are not permitted to choose who could best fulfill their need for legal representation.

The Post-Dispatch carried a story today that touches on this question. Attorneys from Missouri’s Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel are trying to strip Mark Belz — an attorney with a distinguished 30-year career — of his law license because several years ago he used $175,000 of his clients’ funds for his own purposes. This is serious business, as attorneys are ethically bound never to breach their clients’ trust in this way, and those who do are almost always disbarred. But several facts make Mr. Belz’s case unique.

First off, he recognized that what he had done was wrong without being caught. He confessed, apologized, and made restitution for the funds used. Second, at the time of his wrongdoing he was suffering from bipolar disorder — an illness for which he is now being treated — and his psychiatrist has testified that he is unlikely ever to repeat such behavior. Finally, and most importantly, his clients forgave him and continued to use Mr. Belz as their attorney. To the best of my knowledge, no one is interested in pressing criminal charges.

No one, not even Mr. Belz, is contending that he is without fault. But the market provides a ready solution for situations like this, without depriving someone of their right to earn a livelihood. When any service provider, regardless of their profession, breaches the trust of a client or customer, word gets around. Potential clients or customers can discover these sorts of transgressions by exercising a little bit of diligence on their own part. Armed with such information, it should be up to the consumer rather than the government to decide whether they value the provider’s services enough to risk similar experiences.

Removing the state’s authority to exclude people from the legal profession is a market solution that would address a number of issues. Aspiring attorneys could apprentice under practicing attorneys, and thereby would not have to waste thousands of dollars and years of their lives in law schools whose courses are heavy on theory, but do little to teach students how to be lawyers. This would lower the costs of entry to the profession, relieving young attorneys of the pressure to charge high rates in order to pay off student debt. The larger pool of service providers would also result in lower-cost legal service, meaning that more people would be able to afford representation. And, most importantly, it would move us that much closer to being a society in which ordinary people are free to seek their own happiness and prosperity without first obtaining the government’s permission.

The Kansas City School District has lowered its demand for compensation from the Independence School District from $157 million to about $90 million, for the facilities being transferred as part of a boundary shuffle. The reason for the lowered demand? Kansas City School District officials realized they counted the lost tax revenue totals twice in their computation. All you need to know about why parents fought so long and hard to switch from Kansas City public schools to the Independence School District is right there.

The video from a recent Cato event, "Markets vs. Standards: Debating the Future of American Education," is online here. I especially enjoyed listening to Andrew Coulson, who presents evidence from around the world that the private sector improves education. He also addresses Sol Stern’s contention that market-based reforms have been ineffective and that reformers should redirect their attention toward imposing standards.

Coulson points out that the difficulty of replacing the education monopoly with a free market is no reason to give up. None of our country’s previous policy victories would have been achieved had people redirected their efforts to easier alternatives — such as, to take Coulson’s example, improving their local grocery stores.

So, take a look. If you want to skip right to Coulson’s remarks, they begin about 40 minutes into the program.

Last night I attended, along with little Nathaniel, my first meeting of the Show-Me Institute Book Club. The book was Barry Goldwater’s "The Conscience of a Conservative." As one of the only conservative staffers here at SMI (most of our staff really are libertarians), there was no way I could miss a disucssion about Barry Goldwater. The point of this post is not politics, though, it is to let people know how enjoyable the book club discussion was and to encourage college-age people in our area to consider participating in it. Here is the rundown on the club, and I recommend it very highly!

April 23rd is this year’s “Tax Freedom Day” — the day you stop working for the government and start working for yourself.

The Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, estimates the annual measure each year. Today is the day that Americans, on average, stop working to pay their total federal, state, and local tax bill and start working for themselves.

Think about that for a moment. Every second you’ve worked so far this year has been worked solely to pay off your total 2008 tax bill. You have yet to earn a single dollar for yourself. How free do you feel?

If the idea of “Tax Freedom Day” interests you, then I would encourage you to check out our new tax estimator, where we calculate your personal tax freedom day for just Missouri state and local taxes. Because this calculation is personal, rather than an average, it can really help to drive the point home. I hope yours is sooner than mine.

The Post-Dispatch reports on the vote last night at the St. Louis County Council to end the county’s new trash collection program. The proposal failed, which means the new plan, with its trash districts, mandatory recycling, and competitively bid monopoly contracts will continue to move forward. We have discussed this issue as much as any other on this blog. There were some interesting quotes in the debate:

Kurt Witzel, of unincorporated south St. Louis County, objected to the waste district plan partly because he wanted the freedom to choose his own hauler.

"I understand the need for recycling," Witzel said. "But I do not see why a free market system cannot go forth."

Amen to that. However, I question the economics in this comment:

But Bryan Barcom, the president of American Eagle Waste Co., predicted that bigger companies would win the initial bidding war against smaller firms such as his, and would then be free to set high fees.

I guess he is saying that the larger companies will win all the business, drive out the competition, and then jack up their rates. I don’t agree, as long as they don’t award all eight district contracts to one company. Even if the larger companies do drive out the smaller one (which I hope does not happen), they will still have to compete with each other each time the bids go up for renewal. That will keep prices down, obviously. But I certainly sympathize with Mr. Barcom’s concerns about his business.

I have gone back and forth on this one, as some truly dedicated reader(s) may recall. I have a great deal of agreement with this point:

Rodriguez said the district plan was needed in order to reduce the number of trash trucks that served customers on his street. He said as many as 20 trucks rumbled down his street six days a week.

"The old streets in my neighborhood can’t stand up to the wear and tear of these heavy trucks and the hydraulic fluid they leak," he said.

Taxpayers throughout the county pay for the roads in the unincorporated areas, so we all have an interest in cost savings through reduced wear and tear. However, I have again concluded that the benefits of the free market, and the desire of the majority of the residents to continue the old free-market system, should win out and the trash plan should be scrapped. Get it? Scrapped …

It seems a repeal of the village law that made it dramatically easier for communities of, say, one disgruntled landowner to form their own little utopias is up for a hearing tomorrow. Here is the Springfield News-Leader update, via Mr. JC. It had previously appeared to be legislatively dead. As I have said before on this subject, the problems in Missouri are not caused by too few governments. We had a very reasonable process for incorportation in place before the changes last year, and we need to return to that process. I look forward to the hearing tomorrow and I hope its results are positive.

I would like to commend the members of the Manchester Board of Alderman for defeating a helmet ordinance in Manchester. The Suburban Journals has the story here. Children should always wear helmets when riding bikes, but it is the parents’ job to mandate that, not the government’s. And just because some parents fail to do that is NOT a reason for government to assume more control of our lives. I am pleased to have found a few more local officials who understand freedom:

"I have great respect for the chief and have no doubt of his motivation to protect the public," [Manchester Mayor Asa] Wilson said. "But on balance, this law would usurp the authority of parents."

Well put.

From time to time, it’s a good Idea to step back from deep, introspective analysis of state and local issues and remind ourselves just how ridiculous our elected officials can be.

Today’s example of government immaturity, as detailed by the Post-Dispatch in this article, started over a provision surreptitiously placed into legislation last session that is beginning to raise a number of major concerns.

The bill in question, SB765, allows landowners to skirt county zoning provisions by holding a public vote to establish their land as an independent village. The problem with this, though, is that the vote need only reflect the opinion of those residing inside the areas in question. This means, of course, that a single landowner can vote to make his property a village.

While establishing your own city may seem like a fine exercise in independent politics, it raises taxation issues with the counties themselves and sets a frightening precedent for private taking of land. For these reasons, representatives from districts affected by the rise of these new villages attempted to have the law repealed, claiming that the provision was snuck into a bill prior to a vote before the language could be reviewed.

These reports, though, have been denied, and all attempts to repeal the bill have been stalled.

So, proponents of repeal have threatened to put a hold on passing house bills until the bill is let through.

While I won’t go so far as to call this an endorsement of the Unicam, you would hope that our elected officials would take enough time to correct a provision opposed by county officials across the state.

You’d hope.

In response to Jason Rosenbaum’s clarion Clash call for posts on tax pledges, or more specifically, anti-tax-increase pledges, from candidates, I hereby bite — and he does not even have to send the limousine, anyway. Jason’s post certainly gave the people something good to read on a Sunday. I realize tax pledges are silly, and generally just politics easily gotten around by any good politician, or bad one with a good advisor, but they can serve a positive purpose.

I guess I sort of feel about them as I do sales tax holidays. At least they pin candidates down on their general feelings about taxation. Speaking just as a voter here, I know that someone who signs the pledge, and then lives up to it — at least for the most part — is probably someone I agree with most of the time. I also trust that most voters would realize that the pledge needn’t be absolute … and I would not penalize someone who broke the pledge for a truly necessary tax increase, which in theory may exist somewhere. I also would like to avoid hearing pledge arguments about legislative minutiae ("Are we talking redistricting here, or reapportionment?"), and certainly anyone who takes this pledge opens themselves up to silliness like that. Would a legislator who signed the pledge and then supported instituting a land tax in Saint Louis and Kansas City as part of phasing out the earnings tax be in violation of the pledge? They probably would, but I would certainly support that transition.

So, signing these pledges is really just a higher form of kissing babies. But politicians don’t do any harm when they kiss a baby, and these pledges don’t do any real harm either. Just don’t take them too seriously.

Over and out.

The House approved a teacher bill today, which would allow for alternative teacher certification for working professionals.

Although this isn’t the ultimate solution to the state’s education problems, it makes sense to reduce certification barriers for qualified professionals seeking to become teachers. For example, an engineer with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and 20 years of industry experience should be more than qualified to teach 8th-grade algebra. Traditionally, however, the training and education requirements needed to earn a teacher certification have prevented many potential teachers from transitioning into such a career.

Today’s bill changes that, allowing career switchers with 60 hours of student teaching experience to earn certification without the traditional 21 hours of education college coursework.

Of course there’s opposition to the bill (from the Columbia-Tribune’s coverage):

Rusty Rosenkoetter, coordinator of education certification for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, argues that "The idea is to allow people with content knowledge to have an easier, quicker route into teaching. But it hasn’t increased teaching pools in other states very much. It’s not like Missouri doesn’t already have alternative routes."

But this criticism misses the point. If the bill offers the potential to increase the number of qualified mathematics and science teachers that are currently in short supply, then it’s a positive improvement. And if the bill has no effect, then we’re no worse off than before.

It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s a positive step forward.

When I first read the title of the Post-Dispatch’s coverage of this sales tax issue, I was confused. “House endorses sales tax increase for veterans”? Wow … that’s pretty heartless, don’t you think? To single out veterans for a tax increase?

Sentence structure aside, this is a misleading article. The House voted to endorse a constitutional amendment today, which would increase the state sales tax by 1/8th of one percent (not 1/8th of one cent, as the Post’s article erroneously and nonsensically reports). Revenue from the tax increase would be used to fund state programs for veterans.

To be sure, this isn’t a huge tax increase — a median Missouri household (with income of approximately $38,000) might expect to pay an additional $14.25 in sales taxes every year — but I am always skeptical of tax increases in any form. Every tax increase means that money that could have been spent elsewhere — creating jobs, paying for health care, and fueling economic growth — is spent by a state bureaucrat instead.

For example, Missouri personal income was $191,602 million in 2006, according to the Economic and Policy Research Center. That number represents the aggregate income earned by all Missourians during 2006. On average, households spend about 70 percent of their income on consumption goods, of which slightly less than half are subject to sales tax. This means that an increase in the state sales tax rate of 1/8th of 1 percent would transfer nearly $72 million from taxpayers to the government every year. Think how many jobs $72 million could create. And that’s just in one year!

The Missouri House of Representative has decided that the money would be better spent by the state. Is this really helping our veterans? Our citizens?

The Missouri General Assembly has approved a bill, which Governor Blunt will almost certainly sign, loosening the certification requirements for people who would like to teach, if they have a college degree in the subject they hope to teach and can pass an alternative certification test. (Hat tip to to my friend Don for the suggested link.) Here is yesterday’s Post article on the issue. In short, this bill will allow a retired chemist from Monsanto to teach high school chemistry without having to go through the lengthy teacher certification process. Rep. Muschany puts it very well here:

"We’ve got a crisis of a teacher shortage facing us," said Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, the sponsor of the House version of the bill. "If Harry S Truman were alive today, he wouldn’t be allowed to teach history to 12th-graders."

I’ll leave additional commentary on this change to our education people, but I think this is a great improvement for education in Missouri. I commend Rep. Muschany for leading the succesful fight.

There’s an article in the Post-Dispatch today about the "hormone-free" milk labeling dispute. Supporters of the bill that would forbid the (truthful) labels make it clear that it’s not this particular language they object to, but any labels that make their competitors’ milk look better than theirs:

"Somebody could say there’s no battery acid in their milk," said Rick Scheer, a producer from New Haven, Mo. "Their assumptions make my milk look bad."

Does he want a law against saying that, too?

This is atrocious. Just hit the preview clip to watch. I will never cease to be amazed at how people are willing to let their lives be surveilled and followed in the name of safety. And this isn’t even about defending against terrorists — steps which may or may not have been needed after 9/11. This is just to protect against vandalism, for Christ’s sake. Have local officials who move forward with things like this ever even heard of 1984?