On Monday, eight Midwestern governors met in Chicago to sign a memorandum of understanding by which they committed to a widespread effort to vie for stimulus funds that will be used expand high-speed rail systems throughout participating states. The governors of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin were all signatories.

This policy’s price tag will be in the billions. Leaving aside ideologies about public spending, I want to first evaluate this policy in terms of whether it is viable — whether it can even achieve its stated goals. If a policy cannot even accomplish its stated goals, then peripheral discussions about whether the government should spend money, or whether the price tag is too large, become unnecessary. The primary stated values of high-speed rail policy, as I see them, are: job creation; increasing commuter ease; and, reducing environmental impact.

I would contend that the policy fails its cause in all three, and over the next few days, I will try to evaluate high-speed rail’s viability in protecting the environment, creating jobs, providing economic stimulus, and reducing travel times. Stay tuned.

Last night at the Cardinals game, a friend of mine and I discussed the bottle deposit law. It came up because we discussed how they have gotten rid of beer cans entirely at Busch this year. You can only buy your $27 dollar beers on tap or in plastic bottles. This is regrettable, because aluminum is so easy to recycle, although plastic can obviously be recycled, too. Also, I had just returned from a trip to Michigan, with its famous 10-cent deposit.

So, should Missouri institute a deposit law of either a nickel or dime? I think it should. It would be one way to encourage positive social behavior (recycling bottles) through incentives rather than directives. You don’t have to recycle if you don’t want to, it will just cost you $1.20 extra per case of beer. This is not a tax you have to pay, it is one you choose to pay, and the behavior encouraged is so simple to do it can hardly be considered onerous or burdensome. So, I say bring on a 5- or 10-cent deposit law in Missouri. Let me know what you think in the comments.

It is always dangerous to talk before you have all the facts, as a certain person sharing a beer today with two Bostonians has realized, but, dammit, if it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for me. I want to direct you to an example of government consolidation in Kansas City. According to the Star, the city’s independent ambulance service is being folded into city government. I am not here to talk about the silly use of consultants, although I certainly agree with this councilman — whose point applies to corporate America as well as to government:

“I still think we’ve got the expertise in-house,” Sharp said. “We use too many consultants.”

From what I can tell and what I have learned, this seems to be a good move in KC. MAST, a regional, independent government entity, is the nonprofit company that has formerly provided this service. There are many types of these regional entities in Missouri, and some of them certainly deserve to remain independent, like MSD in St. Louis. But MAST appears primarily to serve Kansas City and surrounding unincorporated areas, like Blue Summit. Hopefully in the areas outside of KC, fully private ambulance services will begin providing services.

But back to the consolidation issue. If the city can save money on overhead, et al, by bringing one government entity under the control of another, then this will be a good thing for taxpayers. There is no compelling reason to avoid this — the need for checks and balances from separate agencies doesn’t really apply here. Plus, most people, right or wrong, probably think ambulance service is a legitimate responsibility of government, so this is not another example of the government expanding its reach. It’s just one government consolidating with another; which is fine with me as long as it saves tax dollars.

I am totally open to being corrected on any of this by our KC readers, so fire away in the comment section, if you like.

Yesterday morning, I (along with a number of other Show-Me Institute staffers) attended a talk by Newt Gingrich, hosted by Delta Dental. He outlined four major tax changes that he thought were worth supporting to grow the economy (and, thus, make it feasible to support programs like Medicare).

Newt Gingrich’s four major tax changes:

1. A two-year, 50-percent tax reduction for Social Security and Medicare (including employer match).

Gingrich suggested this would provide a sort of “raise” for people, by increasing their take-home pay. By eliminating the employer match, the tax burden per employee small businesses would decrease, which would encourage businesses to hire more employees. This type of temporary tax cut might not be terribly effective on its own, however, as forward-looking people recognize their tax burdens will be unchanged over most of their planning horizon.

2. Eliminating the capital gains tax — like in China.

3. A 12.5-percent corporate tax rate — like in Ireland.

Nos. 2 and 3 would promote business growth (and provide an incentive for industries to stay in the United States). Our current corporate tax rate is 35 percent, which creates an economic incentive to move operations overseas — to Ireland, for instance, which has the lowest rate. By lowering the U.S. rate, government might capture less revenue, but this policy change could easily lead to capturing more — 12.5-percent collections on a business that stayed in the United States is much higher than 0 percent for a business that departed. And this doesn’t take into account the fact that lower business tax burdens lead to spurred economic activity.

4. Abolish the death tax.

Why should taxed income be taxed a second time? At any rate, an estate tax — in which the government gets paid when somebody dies — seems like a perverse policy incentive, especially considering the larger role that government wants to play in health care.

Personally, I think all these tax cuts are great ideas. As Show-Me studies have demonstrated time and time again, lower taxes promote economic growth. Solidifying a new growth trend is crucial before we even consider increasing government’s role in health care — something that should, of course, be minimized when at all possible.

This morning, six employees of the Show-Me Institute and one of our regular book club attendees found ourselves among 200 other guests at the futureFOCUS 2009 seminar, which featured a presentation from former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. He made some excellent points that I can only agree with on the topic of health care, including: The public option is likely ill-considered; taxes should be lowered across the board so that individuals will have more money to buy their own health care; and, the present level of bureaucracy is to blame for much of the present cost of health care. He also pointed out that the Canadian system currently does not cover a number of conditions, for which many Canadians cross the border to get treatment; if we adopt a system similar to Canada’s, where will those people go?

Gingrich made one point I did not agree with. After pointing out that the progression of technology will afford new avenues for medical care and scientific progress, he used that as an opportunity to advocate a federally funded project that would study the brain using the latest technology, similar to the Human Genome Project or the Manhattan Project.

Overall, Gingrich was an incredible speaker, and the hour just flew by. During the Q&A, one audience member indicated his disappointment at the lack of outrage at some of President Barack Obama’s proposals. He asked, “Do you have any outrage?” Gingrich waited several beats before responding, and ultimately indicated that, yes, it’s easy to get outraged, but then you’re exhausted and you may not accomplish what you want. It’s better to remain level-headed, slow down the debate, and point out anything false stated by your opponents with calm reason.

This reminded me of a blog post I read awhile back about how anger and emotionality in politics is adaptive. It made sense for our ancestors to get excited about policy decisions, because it could literally mean life and death for the tribe. As modern individuals with the benefit of self-analysis and better reason, however, it is incumbent upon us to follow Gingrich’s great advice and make every effort to withhold anger, instead letting cooler heads prevail. It makes sense that a veteran politician would have learned this lesson already, but it was still impressive to see him articulate it so clearly.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently published a letter to the House majority leader regarding a proposal to establish a commission to cut Medicare spending. The council would consist of five medical doctors or health care experts who will suggest cuts that the president must approve.

This is the model of the public option, a top-down plan that takes the individual’s (and doctor’s) agency out of health care. As the Baby Boomer generation becomes eligible for Medicare, the program will inevitably expand — expanding a plan while simultaneously requiring cost cuts is counterintuitive. Cuts are best made through increased efficiency and better preventive care, not because a panel of five people decides to stop covering certain procedures.

The CBO estimates that $2 billion can be saved in the latter half of the next decade. However, this amount is minuscule in comparison to the $1 trillion proposed cost of the public option in that same time period.

Two of the more disturbing recommendations from the CBO letter appear on page 5:

• Setting explicit and feasible quantitative goals for reducing outlays in the Medicare program.
• Incorporating an explicit fall-back mechanism (such as an across-the-board reduction in payments) if goals for cost reduction are not met.

Health care costs have increased significantly since the creation of Medicare. This can be attributed in part to cost floors and the regulations imposed on doctors by Medicaid and Medicare. As it is, some doctors cannot afford to accept Medicare patients, and some are reimbursed for less than the required procedures cost. These added costs are foisted onto private insurance companies.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that Missouri spent $7,029 per enrollee in 2004, slightly below the national average. Could these costs be lowered? Probably, but outright cuts to what treatments will (and won’t) be paid for will only have a dire outcome for the health care system.

Health care costs need to come down, but mandating cuts is not the best way to achieve that. Instead, increasing efficiency by lowering regulatory barriers or lowering fixed costs through tort reform, in order to lower malpractice insurance rates, would help ensure that patient needs continue to be met. Mandated cuts are just another way of imposing health care rationing.

I have a lot of problems with the wording of this headline. Don’t get me wrong — I love KMOX and am listening online to The Charlie Brennan Show as I type this. But this is exactly the type of headline, and media story, that gets people to buy into the blatantly false idea that it is the government’s job to get people out of poverty and manage the economy.

Even if you are of the regrettable belief that it is the proper role of government to manage the economy, headlines like this make it sound like the government somehow is good at doing that. Which it ain’t. Seriously, does anyone believe that even one family is going to be lifted out of the cycle of poverty because the Board of Aldermen and the mayor passed an ordinance? I am not criticizing the elected officials, here; I am just pointing out that headlines like this reinforce economic ignorance.

Almost precisely one year ago, I wrote about how some Missouri cities were dedicating your taxpayer dollars to preserve the government’s ability to take property from one private owner and give it to another private owner. As you may remember, the Missouri Municipal League engaged in litigation intended to prevent Missouri’s citizens from voting on the question — using a combination of funds from city governments and contributions from the same commercial developers who are eager to see eminent domain used to their advantage.

Folks, they’re at it again.

Almost as soon as Missouri Citizens for Property Rights got a ballot title from the Secretary of State, the Missouri Municipal League sued in an attempt to make the ballot title recite a parade of imaginary horrors that they claim would follow the end of eminent domain abuse. A couple of weeks ago, Judge Richard Callahan ruled that the Secretary of State’s ballot title could go forward with only one insubstantial adjustment.

The Missouri Municipal League has appealed that ruling, continuing to insist that the restoration of property rights should be described as nothing less than the death knell for America. And, again, they’re calling on your elected officials to pony up your money in order to prevent you from having a say in the matter.

As a “Red Alert” sent out by the Municipal League states:

[A]lthough cities cannot directly contribute to support or oppose any ballot measure, cities may fund public informational campaigns. The City of Springfield has already committed $5,000 to this effort. Other cities are following suit. City contributions should generally reflect the size and financial capacity of the participating city. The League will also continue to coordinate these efforts with private sector “partner organizations” such as the Missouri Chamber of Commerce.

Of course, other cities have a more direct means of trying to prevent your participation in the political process. The city government of Slater, Mo., passed a resolution last week that “urges the citizens of [that] community to refrain from signing a CPR constitutional initiative petition because doing so would be contrary to the best interest of most property owners within the State of Missouri.”

When I used the Sunshine Law to compel the city to produce all documents its officials considered before adopting this resolution, all they could provide was a PowerPoint presentation created by the Missouri Municipal League — meaning, apparently, that city officials did not even consider the actual text of the proposed amendment, much less seek out any alternative interpretations. Instead, they resorted to the Orwellian suggestion that a constitutional amendment designed to protect the property rights of all Missourians would somehow be bad for property owners.

This should not be tolerated. Fortunately, it seems that some people have recognized this and are taking action. The Post-Dispatch reported just the other day that some citizens in Pacific, Mo., have demanded that their city withdraw from the Missouri Municipal League.

If enough people put pressure on their city governments to do the same, the Municipal League may have no other choice but to start respecting property rights instead of continuing their defense of eminent domain abuse.

This weekend, the Columbia Business Journal ran a tremendous article (part one of what looks to be a series) discussing how that city used eminent domain to demolish a thriving part of its black community. I’ve discussed previously how, particularly in the mid–20th century, cities would frequently use eminent domain to accomplish “Negro removal.” I had not previously been aware of Columbia’s own experiment with this racist enterprise, and I’m thankful to the Business Journal for bringing it to light.

When I first glanced at the title of Bill Schrier’s latest blog post, “Gray, Not Green, Technology,” I thought he must be referring to green jobs. Those are the jobs in alternative energy that aren’t productive enough to sustain themselves in the marketplace, but that are supposed to be the professions of the future (if the government subsidizes them, that is). Wasting resources on jobs that wouldn’t exist in a competitive environment is antithetical to the goal of saving and conserving resources, so I would readily classify such programs as “gray” rather than “green.”

However, reading further I see that Schrier isn’t referring to any specific policy; he’s wary of technological progress in general. Here’s why he thinks green technology is a myth:

Technology contains scarce minerals mined from the earth. It uses a lot of plastic (plastic comes from oil, right?). It takes a lot of water and toxic chemicals to make electronic components. An integrated circuit or chip factory uses as much water and power as a small, not-very-green, city.

Using technology is injurious, both to the environment and to people.

I’m starting to wonder why he took the job of Chief Technology Officer for the city of Seattle!

Schrier doesn’t consider all the materials and brainpower that would be wasted if we tried to do the same tasks without the benefit of technology. For example, imagine if there were no Internet and blog posts had to be printed in newspapers. You would have to deliver the newspapers several times a day in order to deliver information as quickly as a blog. Maybe you’re thinking, “They should just print them once a day and people could do without reading blog posts as soon as they’re written.” But then you have to take into account all the resources that would go to waste because of a lack of information — all the poor decisions that could have been prevented had people known more, sooner.

Even if you accept Schrier’s premise that technology is harmful, you must admit that technology is here to stay. And, because it is, the smartest thing to do is to create more new technologies, because they are cleaner, greener, and more efficient. It’s a good thing we didn’t stop developing computers when they were the size of rooms. Let’s welcome technological innovation and the environmental benefits it’s sure to bring.

James McWilliams, author of Just Food, discusses in a recent issue of Forbes magazine how the practice of buying local does not necessarily support the aim of reducing environmental impact.

McWiliams begins by citing a 2006 academic study in New Zealand that determined Londoners could reduce their environmental impact by purchasing lamb imported from New Zealand rather than lamb produced in England, because factors other than transportation often play a far larger role in environmental impact.

Mcwilliams continues by discussing how economies of scale in production can positively distribute environmental costs:

To choose a locally grown apple over an apple trucked in from across the country might seem easy. But this decision ignores economies of scale. To take an extreme example, a shipper sending a truck with 2,000 apples over 2,000 miles would consume the same amount of fuel per apple as a local farmer who takes a pickup 50 miles to sell 50 apples at his stall at the green market. The critical measure here is not food miles but apples per gallon.

We’ve argued on this website before that locavore policies constitute a new form of protectionism. This is true, but likely not a very compelling line of reasoning for locavores.

In this case, the economically efficient and environmentally efficient solutions do not have to be polarly aligned. Locavores should understand how their actions may fail to uphold the values they are rooted in, because of logistics and unintended consequences that haven’t been thoroughly considered. It’s even more important to view with a skeptical eye any legislation, government purchases, or changes in trade policy based on the reasoning that local consumption equates to environmentally friendly consumption.

Over at Mises Daily, Art Carden revisits the harmful effects of minimum wage laws and cites a Show-Me Institute study to do so:

Suppose that a job can be done by either three unskilled workers or two skilled workers. If the unskilled wage is $5 per hour and the skilled wage is $8 per hour, the firm will use unskilled labor and produce the output at a cost of $15. However, if we impose a minimum wage to $6 per hour, the firm will instead use two skilled workers and produce for $16 as opposed to the $18 cost of using unskilled workers. In the “official data” this shows up as a small job loss — in this case, only one job — but we see an increase in average wages to eight dollars per hour in spite of the fact that the least skilled workers are now unemployed.

I am in favor of helping the poor, but minimum wage laws — striking examples of the law of unintended consequences at work — are not the best tools to address the plight of the working class. As Carden notes, wage floors create unemployment for low-skilled workers. But earning a low wage would be better than no wage at all. Further, wage floors create deadweight losses through inefficiency, strain employer-employee relations, and foster the emergence of black markets in labor.

Wage floors are supported by people with the noblest intentions and the poorest reasoning. Proponents would do well instead to support education, skills training, and expansion of market opportunities through deregulation as better mechanisms to alleviate lower class struggles without the sting of such harmful unintended consequences.

I was in Washington, D.C., yesterday to hear a presentation by Wendell Cox at the Heritage Foundation. His presentation centered on whether technology or behavioral changes should be emphasized when considering greenhouse gas emissions. It was a great talk, and I just want to share the accompanying slides with all of you. Check them out.

Over at our Policy Pulse portal, staff reporter Audrey Spalding has published several recent articles about education issues in Missouri.

This past week, Audrey has explored how recent school board meetings have not led to a resolution for teacher negotiations in the Lindbergh School district, how recent state legislation has affected Lindbergh’s budget, and how that same legislation threatens to choke funding to 23 St. Louis County school districts.

Please stay tuned to Policy Pulse as we continue to promote government transparency, civic participation, and policy analysis.

The Panama City Renaissance School blog links to an article in the Las Vegas Sun about same-sex public education. The article quotes the usual experts for and against single-sex schooling. Then it concludes with this on-target quote from a parent:

“I don’t know if boys and girls really do learn differently — I know that’s the theory,” Curiel told the Sun as he dropped Eric off for class. “But whatever it is, it’s working.”

Experts on the both sides make the mistake of overgeneralizing. Single-sex education proponents claim, for example, that all boys should learn in classrooms painted certain colors because the average boy reacted better than the average girl to that color in a research study — never mind that wall color may not affect achievement, or that individual boys have different color preferences. On the other hand, critics of single-sex education rally against the perceived unfairness of separate classes, dismissing the fact that some students have had good experiences with single-sex schooling.

One system wouldn’t work for everyone, but it’s better when people have a choice.

I was blessed with a pretty good memory, especially for words and numbers — less so for faces. So when I read this headline at the Post-Dispatch’s “Political Fix” blog, it instantly reminded me of this “Saturday Night Live” skit from 20 years ago. My memory had it that John Goodman was in the sketch, not John Larroquette, but other than that, I was right on.

Perhaps I confused the two because they each have a St. Louis connection. If you can tell me what that connection is in the comments, you will win my praise (but nothing else).

John Combest recently posted a couple of articles about Better Courts for Missouri’s attempt to change the Missouri Plan, the current method for choosing justices for the state courts. The Missouri Plan, in theory, is supposed to take the politics out of the process of judicial selection: A panel, mostly comprised of lawyers, submits three nominations to the governor, who selects from those three. After a year, the judge stands a “retention” election. Better Courts for Missouri argues that this process is too secretive and heavily favors trial lawyers.

Show-Me Institute scholars have written about this topic before, discussing benefits of the Missouri Plan as measured by a few particular metrics.

Findings from the Show-Me Institute’s 2008 study of judicial selection have been misinterpreted by proponents of the Missouri Plan who have drawn broad conclusions about its positive effects on the economy based on the study’s relatively narrow, caveated data set. The authors of the study, economists Joshua Hall and Russell Sobel, stipulated that the criteria they used to determine the effects of judicial selection mechanisms on economic growth amounted to a limited methodology. They concluded that although it appeared variants of the Missouri Plan tended to correlate with better economic growth than states using partisan or nonpartisan elections, it might be possible to make minor improvements to the process, such as adding legislative oversight. Although Hall and Sobel’s data provided a useful glimpse at the effects of the Missouri Plan from one particular angle, other future studies analysing different sets of source material might arrive at somewhat different conclusions.

Hopefully, Better Courts for Missouri will take as many of these factors into account as possible as they work toward a solution that brings increased transparency to judicial selection in Missouri.

This chapter of Liberating Learning describes the political process of education reform. In a nutshell, new practices like merit pay and parental choice threaten teachers’ unions, so the unions do all that’s in their power (and they have a lot of power) to prevent them from taking root. If a significant reform makes it through the political process, unions challenge its legality in the courts.

The authors stress how unions would lose out if public schools became more competitive and efficient. I think they would agree, though, that virtual schools, charter schools, and other new developments in the education market have the potential to help teachers as individuals. The catch, from the unions’ point of view, is that not all teachers would gain in the same way. Good teachers would earn more. The best would have new opportunities for career advancement; an example of this appears in the very beginning of the next chapter, “Technology on All Fronts,” where the authors tell the story of a teacher who goes into curriculum development after helping to create a successful online charter school.

Teachers would depend less on unions if schools competed to offer them better pay and benefits. They might also consider which schools would suit their teaching style — virtual vs. in person would be just one choice they could make. Instead of asking, “Will the union negotiate the best deal for me and everyone else?” teachers would ask, “Which combination of work environment and pay would be best for me personally?” Then unions would lose members, dues, and power.

This week, the federal minimum wage will rise to $7.25, which is 70 cents higher than the previous national minimum and 20 cents higher than the current minimum in Missouri. Advocates of the minimum wage hike ostensibly intend to create a “living wage” for the poor, but there are some significant unintended consequences: Minimum wage policy raises costs for businesses and creates economic pressure for them to hire less low-skilled labor.

As the Show-Me Institute has cited in several studies and articles about the effects of minimum wage on the labor market, most people in minimum wage jobs are not in the poorest brackets — many are teenagers who live with their parents, or are people with wealthier spouses.

Those in the poorest brackets and at minimum wage level tend to be predominantly low-skilled workers. When the minimum wage is increased and employers are forced to scale back their hiring, the poorest low-skilled workers tend to lose their jobs as employers choose between them and teenagers from mostly middle-income backgrounds. Minimum wage increases also raise the cost of goods, which harms poorer families disproportionately. Essentially, minimum wage function as an additional tax on the poor.

Any time that the minimum wage is raised, but especially during a recession, the people hurt the most are the lowest-skilled workers — the very same people these raises are supposed to help. If Missouri wants to help its poorest workers, lowering mandated minimum wage levels (or eliminating them entirely) would help tremendously.

The urbanites that run MSNBC are apparently shocked that young people in America are allowed to hunt all by themselves. Can you believe this? Kids are actually allowed to use guns and hunt animals without a parent or guardian around in many states. (In Missouri, which is covered in the story, you only have to be 11 years old to be able to hunt on your own.) How terrible.

Of course, they found a tragedy that they’ve used as the basis for an argument that kids should hit a certain age before they are allowed to do something that kids in America’s rural areas have been doing for hundreds of years. From the story:

On the national level, Guzzo’s comments won support from Jim Kessler, policy director and co-founder of the progressive think-tank Third Way who previously spent four years at Americans for Gun Safety. Both groups seek tighter gun laws but are not opposed to hunting.

“I find it shocking actually that there aren’t laws that prohibit unsupervised hunting by minors,” said Kessler. “For a lot of families, hunting is passing on values from fathers to sons and it’s about responsibility and there are a lot of good lessons there, but it is far too much responsibility to give to a child or a minor teen, far too much responsibility. You need an adult there.”

There are tragic accidents in every aspect of life. The young man who committed the manslaughter prompting the article will pay a price for it. It seems most people see a tragedy and try to make laws to restrict the rights of others in order to prevent another tragedy, no matter how small the odds may be that the law will actually prevent a similar future tragedy. Maybe I am a jerk, but I get offended when people try to use a tragedy to limit the freedoms of others.

And I don’t mean to make fun of MSNBC. The story is interesting and the survey informative. I just don’t see a need for Missouri to increase its age limit because of one terrible incident.

I feel bad for this guy, who is being held as a terrorist after he threatened a telemarketer. While I agree with the commenters on my texting-while-driving post, who explain why actions that have a high risk of leading to crimes should be outlawed, I don’t understand why the irate consumer in this case isn’t just liable for a misdemeanor. Is it because he threatened to harm more than 10 people? (Who came up with that magic number?) Or because they wanted to evacuate the building?

Not everyone who gets angry on the phone is a terrorist.

The second chapter of Liberating Learning is “The Need for Achievement.” The authors present data from NAEP and international tests that show a large achievement gap between white and minority students, and an achievement gap between U.S. students and students in other countries. The latter gap persists even when you compare students from similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

This chapter could serve as a concise, clear introduction to achievement studies of the past 20 years. Readers who are already following education reform debates probably won’t find anything new here. It’s the same story we’ve heard time and again: U.S. test scores are poor, therefore U.S. economic power is at risk.

One thing that strikes me when I look at test score comparisons like the ones presented in this chapter is the decline in achievement as students get older. U.S. 4th-graders do okay by international standards. Students fall behind in middle school and high school, so by the time they take the tests as 12th-graders, their international peers outperform them.

If U.S. students started out far behind others, it would be understandable if their relative performance declined in the higher grades. One might conclude that the disadvantage was too great for U.S. public schools to overcome, and that they would have to push kids harder and harder at each grade level — an increasingly difficult challenge. But, in fact, U.S. students do OK in elementary school. We don’t see the big gaps between the United States and other developed countries until students have been in school for several years. U.S. schools are not helping students reach their potential.

As I have repeatedly said, civil lawsuits — not zoning ordinances — are the best solution to nuisances caused by a property owner’s use of land. It just so happens that events in the western part of the state provide a handy case study in how this is supposed to work.

In 1998, a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) began operations in Cedar County near property owned by Ed and Ruth McEowen. The odors from the hog farm’s operations dramatically impacted the McEowens’ ability to enjoy their home, and the farm also polluted a creek that ran across their property. In 2005, the couple sued several entities responsible for the CAFO, and last week the suit was settled for $1.1 million dollars. That payment only addresses the problems caused from 1998 to the date of the settlement, so if the CAFO continues to operate in such a way that it disturbs the McEowens, they retain the right to file a new lawsuit. The Kansas City Star reports that there are currently about 400 similar nuisance lawsuits pending all over Missouri.

When the government imposes restrictions on property use, they are usually painted with broad strokes, prohibiting a variety of uses that might not result in any harm. The potential uses that are permitted are frequently governed by a set of standards that impose strict limits on what must be done in order for that use to be permissible. Such stringent, one-size-fits-all prescriptions inhibit innovation, and they make the mistake of assuming that non-compliance will be detrimental, whether or not this is actually the case. Furthermore, if a private property owner, such as a CAFO, violates this sort of governmental regulation, the government is strictly responsible for its enforcement, and if there is to be any financial punishment for such a violation, the government will usually be the beneficiary. Any citizens that have been negatively affected by another’s use of their property are not likely to be compensated for the inconvenience they have suffered.

A policy that relies upon civil lawsuits to address private nuisances, however, has several advantages. It results in a system in which property owners have tremendous freedom to pursue their business — perhaps in innovative ways — while still holding them accountable for any harm that their actions might cause to their neighbors. The neighbors, on the other hand, would have a way to defend the quiet enjoyment of their own property by demanding financial compensation for any harm they might suffer. (For anyone concerned about a neighbor’s ability to afford legal representation, let me assure you that many attorneys would leap at the chance to take a case like this on a contingency basis — 30 percent of $1.1 million is a lot of money.)

The ultimate result is that property owners would have a very powerful incentive to cooperate with their neighbors and to avoid disturbing their neighbors’ enjoyment of their property, while still retaining the freedom to make beneficial use of their own.

Here’s a Post-Dispatch article about the proposed Hindu temple in Jefferson County, which I’ve blogged about in the past. The project will be reconsidered this month, because the developers scaled down their plans. The latest proposal calls for fewer than half the number of houses that were first envisioned.

It’s outrageous that resources are allowed to sit idle while neighbors hold developments hostage — especially in a weak economy. The zoning process results in a lot of waste, probably outweighing the decreases in property values it’s supposed to prevent.

Freakonomics has some links to interesting studies of traffic congestion. The studies indicate that, paradoxically, sometimes a reduction in road options may decrease congestion. I think many St. Louisans would have thought this idea to be insane before the 2008 closing of I-64, when everybody saw the amazing lack of traffic problems that resulted. Now, granted, 2009 has not been quite as easy for traffic in St. Louis as it was the previous year, but it is still far better than anyone could have predicted.

A couple months ago, the General Assembly approved a bill that would end taxation of bingo cards, allow organizations to hold more frequent bingo games and to spend more on advertising them, and make other minor changes to state bingo regulations.

Now, Gov. Jay Nixon has vetoed the bill, invoking education as his reason:

“In light of current fiscal conditions, this reduction to education funding cannot be absorbed,” Mr. Nixon wrote

This comes just after the news that the state-subsidized bicycle race will proceed as originally planned, with the usual funding.

The state could have ended funding for the race, spent the money saved on education, and decreased the bingo tax accordingly. The bicycle race costs $1.5 million and the bingo tax brings in $2.2 million, so funds from the race wouldn’t completely cover the lost revenue if the tax were eliminated. But it would allow for a reduction, and the bingo bill’s other measures would increase revenue because more bingo games could be played. If a reduction in the tax is unacceptable, that’s no reason to maintain the restrictions on frequency of games and advertising expenses, which don’t affect education one way or another.

“Education” is a poor excuse for choosing bicycles over bingo. It doesn’t explain why the state doesn’t tax bicycles to pay for education and subsidize bingo games, which would be just as reasonable as the current arrangement.

The Atlantic recently published an interesting piece about possible solutions for the kidney shortage, by former Reason editor Virginia Postrel. There are more than 80,000 people on the donor waiting list in the United States, undergoing dialysis while they wait 10 years (or much longer) for a kidney transplant. About 1,335 of these potential kidney candidates live in Missouri. Dialysis, a time-consuming four-hour process that is repeated three times a week, fatigues patients — 90 percent of them are unable to work even part-time. Because dialysis treatment is guaranteed by the government (and can potentially go on for decades) it is extremely expensive from a fiscal standpoint.

Postrel’s article lists suggestions for ways both to decrease the transplant wait time and to increase the supply of kidneys, which currently stands at approximately 16,000 per year. One of her suggestions, “donor chains,” would essentially allow a patient’s friends or family, who may be willing to donate a kidney but are not a match, to trade places with other willing donors who do match. The longer these chains of donor-recipients are allowed to grow, the more kidneys can be closely matched to existing biological needs. For people with lots of relatives and friends who are willing and able to donate, this would be a boon.

There are plenty of people who cannot take part in such a chain, though, and for them another interesting solution presented is to purchase healthy kidneys. Donating a kidney is not without cost, and there are very few people who would be willing to donate one to a complete stranger. Any major surgery comes with the risk of potential complications. While a person can live a very healthy life with only one kidney, this lifestyle has additional risks: A single kidney expands to compensate for its missing counterpart, making it more vulnerable to collisions or contact sports, for example. Offering compensation for a kidney donor is a way of taking into account and making up for the risks that the donor decides to undertake. (Also, as Andrew Sullivan’s blog notes, a kidney donor is thereafter limited to one alcoholic beverage per day, which might affect some people’s quality of life.)

The Atlantic article suggests that if Medicare paid donors even $25,000 or $50,000 for a kidney, the resulting equilibrium would cost less than than the current expense incurred by the government-guaranteed dialysis treatments — not to mention the immeasurable quality-of-life benefit for patients who would otherwise waste years of their lives on dialysis.

Some question the morality of “selling” organs like kidneys. They voice legitimate concerns that unscrupulous people would take advantage of the poor, or that debtors or drug addicts would rashly sell their kidneys. Internationally, the kidney market is not benevolent, because some kidneys for sale are taken from unwilling donors in prison.

However, if such a plan were implemented in the United States, each donor would first be required to undergo both a psychological and medical evaluation to ensure that he or she could undertake the ordeal. Waiting periods or payment plans could also be instituted that would prevent people from making snap decisions about becoming a compensated donor. A legitimate American market would also discourage coercive international practices, which mostly arise from transplant tourism. If kidneys are more readily available at home, gray-market transplants abroad would no longer fill a significant economic niche.

If morality is to enter the equation of whether to allow kidney sales in the United States, however, a better question to pose might be whether it is moral to let people die or linger for decades on a waiting list when there are already plenty of healthy kidneys available from willing donors.

I’m reading Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education, by Terry M. Moe and John E. Chubb. The first chapter, “The Seeds of Change,” introduces the main themes of the book: U.S. public education is inefficient and ineffective, but technology has the power to turn things around. Technology, the authors predict, will change the political realities that have prevented reform in the past.

The authors are vague as to what technologies they’ll be discussing. The first few examples are specifically about online courses, which I agree have tremendous potential. Other technologies, I’m not so sure about. I’ve heard jubilant praise for education computer games and those little devices that let students vote on questions posed to them, but I don’t think either will change the education market much. If they just mean technological progress in general, as opposed to, say, labor or capital, then the first part of the thesis is a truism. Of course, technological progress can improve education, the way it improves any other sector. Which innovations represent progress, however, remains a pertinent question.

The section on political resistance is more informative. It explains how reforms like online schools threaten public school employees, and how unions have succeeded at diluting reforms to protect the status quo. Some may blame education problems on a lack of concern about schools, but Moe and Chubb are right to lay the blame on the political process. Concern — nay, even panic — is everywhere. Meaningful action on the part of schools is what’s missing.

I’m looking forward to reading their analysis of why new technology can change politics in ways that other developments in the education sector haven’t.

Policy Pulse has posted a new article about the Employee Free Choice Act by staff reporter Audrey Spalding. Instead of directly combating the act in Congress, a group of Missouri politicians and business leaders rallied in favor of an amendment to the Missouri Constitution that aims to preserve the secret ballot for union representation. Read Audrey’s article for more information on the topic!

It’s proverbially difficult for some species to get along. This Wall Street Journal article (which is available for free, this time; my apologies to those who tried to read the gated article I linked to the other day) details the conflicts that have developed between chickens and humans, the humans being neighbors of the chickens’ owners.

Some people want chicken ownership to be illegal in cities and suburbs because they associate chickens with rural areas. Chickens don’t mesh with their idea of what should go on in a city. As one person quoted in the article put it, “Get a farm.”

The thing is, city ordinances are supposed to protect citizens’ property and safety, not to uphold a particular lifestyle.

Arguments that chickens attract predators, or that they get loose and cause trouble, are legitimate. I didn’t know that the city of Miami has pulled more than 6,000 chickens off its streets since 2003. That’s an outrageously high number of chickens. However, those problems could be prevented simply by enforcing limits on the number of chickens people keep and requirements that chickens be secured in their owners’ yards. The complaints are the fault of irresponsible pet owners, and have nothing to do with keeping chickens per se. There’s no reason to think chicken owners are less likely to care for their pets properly than dog owners or cat owners.

If you’d like to read more about chickens, here are some previous blog posts on the subject.