As you may know, one of our areas of interest here at the Show-Me Institute is occupational licensing, as in: How do we get less of it? We will be publishing some great work about this very shortly. I know that it is great, because it’s mine. That aside, here is the first Show-Me Daily free-market question for our readers, staff, former interns, etc.

What is the common occupation with the absolute least amount of government involvement?

The second part: What is the most prominent occupation with the least amount of government involvement?

There are plenty of occupations that don’t involve getting a license as a precondition to work, as doctors and lawyers must do. But many of them, such as farmers or bankers, clearly involve a great deal of government contact. What is the common (legal) occupation where you deal, in any way, shape, or form with the government the least? And, along the lines of doctors, what is the most prominent occupation that does not in any way involve a government license? My answer to the second might be clergymen. I don’t have an answer yet to the first.

Fire away in the comments section. …

The much-discussed Riverfront Times article about MetroLink from a few months ago is being discussed at the Freakonomics blog. If you are visiting our site, then I am pretty sure you’d also be familiar with their site, book, and phenomenon — so I don’t need to expand. But be sure to check out the discussion, especially in light of the upcoming votes on light rail in St. Louis and Kansas City.

As an addendum, a video is being passed around about Kansas City’s light-rail proposal. In the interest of fairness, if anyone sends us something similar, but in favor of the proposal. we’ll link to that, too.

Loyal readers might remember this post from a few weeks back, when I was knee-deep in renewable energy research. To sum it up, I had to put 10 of my closest family and friends on the chopping block, giving their emails to the Missouri Clean Energy proponents in order to get a free T-shirt.

Well, today my efforts finally paid off when I got an email saying that SLU’s post office had a package with my name on it. I instantly ran out the door to the school post office, thinking my Neil Diamond Halloween costume had arrived, but was surprised to see the return address belonged to the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

To be honest, I had written off the idea of this T-shirt coming weeks ago. I figured it was just a ploy to get email addresses out of me, and that the chances of me getting a T-shirt were practically nonexistent. Plus, I also imagined they read my op-ed and decided I don’t deserve a T-shirt.

But the environmentalists surprised me and were true to their word, and now I have a pretty neat, green (surprise surprise), Missouri Renewable Energy T-shirt. I shall wear it proudly and know that somewhere out there, 10 of my closest friends and family members are receiving rather annoying daily email updates about Proposition C. Totally worth it.

I’ll leave the legal analysis to others here at the Show-Me Institute, but I wanted to highlight this regrettable ruling in Clayton that will allow suburban school districts to continue to refuse to educate young people from the unaccredited city of St. Louis school district. (This will be, in my opinion, the ultimate result — not necessarily the immediate result.)

According to a Post-Dispatch article the city of Joplin will no longer allow teachers in its public schools to show any visible tattoos.

Now, at first blush, this seems like an infringement on liberty, and perhaps it is. But it may also be a way for a local government to provide something people want, without the drawback of forcing all to comply. Let me explain.

In 1956, an economist named Charles Tiebout (pronunciation: I’m told his last name rhymes with see-through) put forth the idea that if (a) information is sufficiently available, (b) moving is relatively inexpensive, and (c) there are sufficiently many communities to chose from (there were a few other assumptions that aren’t important here), then communities would be able to most closely match the preferences of their constituents. Joplin has provided an alternative for people who prefer to send their children only to schools where the teachers have no obvious ink. If it were a statewide mandate, I would oppose it on the grounds that it is difficult to aggregate the preferences of an entire state. Because it is local, however, I celebrate the experiment.

For other Show-Me Institute–related references to Tiebout, go ahead and check out our first policy study, published way back in March ‘06.

How’s this for a frightening law? Belleville is limiting trick-or-treating to kids in eighth grade and younger.

Happily for the Belleville teenagers, this doesn’t sound enforceable. Many eighth graders look as big and scary as college freshman. It’s hard to tell the difference between a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old when they’re in costume. Besides, the new ordinance makes an exception for teens who accompany younger siblings, so all a ninth grader has to do is team up with some eighth-grade friends and pretend to be a chaperone.

Still, the last thing any city needs is a bunch of redundant, unenforceable laws. Perhaps they’ll rethink the concept when they figure out that eighth graders don’t carry photo IDs.

Jefferson County voters will soon decide whether to adopt a charter for their county. Doing so would make substantial changes in the way Jefferson County’s government would operate. Here is the home page of the charter reform movement. Here is the testimony I gave to their commission, and here are my thoughts about their final charter proposal.

I think that adoption of the charter proposal would benefit the people of Jefferson County. While there are a few parts of it I don’t like, which I discuss in detail in my “Thoughts” piece, on the whole the document is drafted well, and will give the people of Jefferson County the checks and balances that a large county needs. If I lived within JeffCo, I would almost certainly vote for it. (I say “almost” because it is a hypothetical question, and I have to be careful about electioneering.)

One of the best parts of the proposed charter is the way in which it is sure to allow for increasing governmental cooperation by the other entities in the county. That will really benefit the citizens and taxpayers in the long run. There are many other good parts to it, and the members of the commission deserve a great deal of thanks for their time and effort.

From the charter:

3.4.2.22. Cooperate or join by contract or otherwise with any Municipality or Special District or agency thereof, or with the United States of America or any agency thereof, for the planning, development, construction, acquisition or operation of any public improvement or facility, or for a common service; and accept, in the name of the County, gifts, devises, bequests, and grants-in-aid from any Municipality or Special District or agency thereof, or from the United States of America or any agency thereof.

3.4.2.23. Provide the terms upon which the County will perform any services and functions of any Municipality or Special District in the County by agreement of the Municipality or Special District.

On a related note, I thought Franklin County would have the same issue and question on its ballot, but apparently that will be on the April 2009 ballot instead, so I will hold off until then with any comments.

There’s a nice short article on KOMU Channel 8’s website advocating increased public funding for health care in Missouri. Now, I am not a monster. I do think it would be better if more people had better health care — but I am not willing to ignore the costs. Therefore, I disagree with the efficacy of the method supported in this piece. Sure, if we increase taxes or divert funds from current projects, we can spend more on health care. But there is little reason to believe this would bring about a preferable outcome.

My complaint is twofold. Firstly, it is difficult to be sure that public funds would be spent in the areas of greatest need. There is instead reason to believe that leaving money in the hands of the taxpayers will allow them to spend it on whatever medical treatment has the highest benefit/cost ratio for their particular time and place. Second, let’s not forget that public spending in particular areas tends to crowd out comparable private industry in those areas, even when that private area is charitable in nature. From the article:

Brown gets free therapy at the University of Missouri’s School of Health Professions from a program that runs on donations. Brown and his [fiancée] realize without it he would have no therapy at all.

Now, the government may have established incentives, such as tax breaks, to encourage this kind of behavior from the SHP — but this is plainly a privately funded project. Rather than encourage the government to tax/spend more on something that most people would agree benefits those in need, instead perhaps it would be worthwhile to encourage increased private donations to such programs, demanding no funds from already cash-starved public coffers. And, more importantly, let us celebrate the decency of the SHP and its donors for providing such a wonderful service to those in need.
For related reading from the Show-Me Institute, see Calvin Harris’ recent op-ed.

To follow up on yesterday’s post, we have some studies and articles out looking at a couple more ballot issues. One of our current interns, the original Wizard of Washington (Mo.), Jacob Voss, has a well-thought-out piece about the renewable energy mandate on the ballot. This has also been the subject of some great discussion on Show-Me Daily, and MOPNS is hosting it on their site, as well. (And thank you for that, Scooter!) Whatever the pluses and minuses of the issue, mandates are very rarely a good thing in economics. Perhaps this is one of the exceptions? But I doubt it. …

The last major ballot issue about which we have something to say is the question of whether to adopt the Missouri Plan for judicial selection in Greene County. We released a major study about the statewide impact of such plans earlier this year. It concluded that states using judicial selection panels, in one form or another, rather than elections, have a high correlation with good overall environments for business. Yours truly framed that argument in relation to Greene County (that’s the Springfield area, in case you didn’t know) in an article where I argue that the Missouri Plan could benefit the area’s residents.

So, voters both statewide and in our big cities, please review our work before you go into the ballot box to make your own well-researched decisions. Especially because an informed vote has absolutely no marginal utility whatsoever over an uninformed vote — which is depressing, but I’ll leave that particular issue to our editor. …

The Post-Dispatch reports today that the city of Valley Park has passed an ordinance that would forbid the use of eminent domain “for economic purposes or private gain.”

While I have not yet read the ordinance at issue, I fear that it says the city may not take property solely for these reasons, as that is almost always the way these things are phrased. If that is, in fact, the case, then Valley Park’s ordinance does absolutely nothing. The Missouri Constitution already forbids the use of eminent domain for these purposes. Cities across the state can simply avoid this prohibition by labeling properties “blighted” (which appears to be specifically permitted under Valley Park’s new ordinance) and claiming that any private profit that might follow the use of eminent domain to clear “blighted” areas is unintentional — and permissible.

Local residents and elected officials who hope to avoid these uses of eminent domain authority are frequently lulled into a false sense of security by ordinances such as these, only to be rudely awakened a couple of years later when the next developer’s plan threatens their homes, businesses, or houses of worship. The key is to draft ordinances with clear, carefully honed standards for determining what properties (if any) can be considered “blighted,” and to what use these properties may be put in the event they must be condemned. I strongly encourage anyone whose city or county is considering an eminent domain ordinance to contact us here at the Show-Me Institute. We will happily help educate elected officials and interested residents about the likely legal effect of changes to their eminent domain laws.

With an election approaching, so I’ve heard, you might be interested in some of the ballot issues that always seem to just appear toward the end. We’re releasing a series of articles coming about these questions, and if you mostly just come to the blog without visiting our main website, you may have missed them.

One of our interns, Calvin Harris, (no, not that Calvin Harris) discussed his thoughts about a proposal before the voters in Saint Louis County to raise the sales tax for youth services, aka Proposition 1. It is a great piece with some creative thinking, and I hope you enjoy it. The passage of Prop. 1 would mean, as a father, I could count on other taxpayers in Saint Louis to pay to care for my son. It was just so stupid of me to think that it was my own responsibility to take care of my child. How reactionary!

And, of course, over in Kansas City, you are voting on light rail. I strongly encourage everyone to read the study Randal O’Toole wrote for the Show-Me Institute about transit in Kansas City, before you make up your minds. It is well worth your time.

While we are on the subject of light rail, former intern and current global traveler Patrick Eckelkamp released an op-ed about the pluses and minuses of the transit tax increase in Saint Louis County. This is a big decision for voters in Missouri’s largest county, and Patrick did a great job of discussing the issue.

More pieces yet to come. …

It’s always the little four-legged guys who get stepped on in these turbulent economic times. The Kansas City Star reports that the number of pets being abandoned at shelters because of foreclosures has risen drastically in recent months. The costs of food and vet visits were simply too much for families, and they opted to get rid of their beloved animals rather than budget around them.

Now, before dropping off Santa’s Little Helper at the “farm,” consider whether there are ways to avoid this. Taking the Bob Barker approach to this problem, perhaps many families should not have pets to begin with. Having a pet is like having a child; it is a long term affair, and should be planned as such ahead of time. Regardless of what they are doing in Nebraska, pets — much like children — are a heavy financial burden, and should be treated as such.

There are, of course, instances where a family falls on hard times unexpectedly, and a pet is already in its possession. Surely, there is some sort of middle ground in which that pet could stay with the family. It seems quite drastic to progress straight from giving up your house to giving up your dog. There’s no intermediate expense that could be sacrificed instead?

I guess I’m trying to say that abandoning a pet because of economic fears is a drastic, and probably avoidable, situation. Tears can be avoided through patience and smarter financial planning.