Here is St. Louis Board of Aldermen Bill No. 337, which would apply current licensing requirements for commercial HVAC work to residential work, as well. Look for almost the exact same thing to be introduced in St. Louis County shortly, too. I understand that these proposed licensing rules and regulations will be introduced in Jefferson County, as well.

Should we expect another fight over this unnecessary, anti-competitive, and simply appalling use of government to restrict competition? Well, given that one of the people who led the fight against this same effort in 2000 — and who was partly successful in that effort — is now a cosigner on the letter requesting the expansion of licensing authority in the county, I don’t have much hope.

My initial post on this HVAC licensing issue last month has all the links you need to find media stories on this subject. I once again recommend the Riverfront Times story from 2000. I basically feel like a boxer who is still standing, but has been hit so many times that he can’t respond. (And, yes, I have boxed and know what it’s like to be hit really hard in the face.) These proposals are coming, they are a perversion of capitalism, and they will raise costs for St. Louis consumers, yet there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it from happening. The capacity to fight back that existed in 2000 just does not appear to be extant right now (as I am sure the licensing proponents are well aware).

Sorry for the late notice, but two Show-Me Institute staffers will be making appearances later today — one on the radio, and one in person.

Research assistant John Payne will be a guest on the Freeman Bosely Jr. morning show on KATZ 1600 AM, once again talking about the St. Louis–area Metro transit system. His segment is scheduled to start somewhere between 11:00 and 11:15 a.m. If you want to listen but are not in St. Louis (or don’t have a radio), you can listen online at www.gospel1600.com. You can also read John’s op-ed about MetroLink expansion and watch his recent appearance on Fox 2 news.

Also today, policy analyst Dave Roland will be the keynote speaker at the Missouri Libertarian Party Convention in Jefferson City! He’ll be speaking about the importance of capturing the hearts and minds of Missourians in our efforts to spread the ideas of liberty and take practical steps toward increased freedom. The Show-Me Institute doesn’t engage in electoral politics, but we’re always happy to share our ideas with others — so, Democrats, Republicans, Greens, what have you, be sure to let us know when you’d like us to speak at your events, as well. We’d love to talk to you.

As the latest egregious example of economic illiteracy to come out of Washington, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) has proposed banning Japanese-made cars. This is a knee-jerk reaction that would be ineffectual at making American drivers safer, and would have many unintended negative consequences.

First, the ban wouldn’t even solve the problem, because all of the Toyotas that were recalled in January for malfunctioning gas pedals weren’t manufactured in Japan. They were manufactured in the United States:

As for banning Japanese-made vehicles: All 2.4 million Toyotas recalled Jan. 21 due to sticky gas pedals, and most of the 5.6 million vehicles recalled because floor mats might jam pedals, were assembled in the USA.

Would this ban have anything to do with the fact that the U.S. government has a large financial stake in GM, a major Toyota competitor?

Banning Toyotas would have many negative consequences. For example, the men and women who work in Toyota dealerships and Toyota manufacturing plants would have to join the ranks of the unemployed. This would have a noticeably negative effect in Missouri, which has a high-enough unemployment rate already — 9.6 percent as of December.

Banning foreign imports like Toyota would hurt consumers because it would limit their choice of cars. When free trade is restricted, a people can only consume what their country is able to produce. In an adapted excerpt from their book Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, Milton and Rose Friedman elucidated what this means to consumers:

We cannot eat, wear, or enjoy the goods we send abroad. We eat bananas from Central America, wear Italian shoes, drive German automobiles, and enjoy programs we see on our Japanese TV sets. Our gain from foreign trade is what we import. Exports are the price we pay to get imports. As Adam Smith saw so clearly, the citizens of a nation benefit from getting as large a volume of imports as possible in return for its exports or, equivalently, from exporting as little as possible to pay for its imports.

The ban would also increase consumer prices on all cars by decreasing the total supply. Domestic car producers do not have the capacity to make up for the shortfall in the short run, which would aggravate this effect. In the aforementioned excerpt, Milton and Rose Friedman explained that “‘Protection’ really means exploiting the consumer” because she has to pay more for goods.

The ban would also decrease the quality of vehicles that are available to American consumers, which is the very problem that this policy is intended to alleviate. When a country attempts to protect certain industries, it removes their incentive to innovate in order to compete in the global market. By banning foreign imports such as Toyota, the United States would do the American car industry and American consumers no favors. GM and Ford have difficulty competing with foreign firms like Toyota and Honda in the status quo world economy because they have “benefited” from American protectionist policies on cars for so long. Furthermore, bans on foreign imports become even more disadvantageous in the future if/when the trade restriction is lifted, because domestic car companies would have lower-tech, lower-quality products than their foreign competitors.

Government intervention in international markets hurts business and discourages economic growth. When a country slaps protective measures on its trade policy, it is probable that other nations will retaliate in kind, leading to increased consumer prices. Impeding free trade is very dangerous policy when international economies are so intertwined. We only have to look to the recent past for evidence of this. Last September, Obama placed a 35-percent tariff on tire imports from China. This was effectively a tax on Americans who drive cars, who were predicted to experience a 20- to 30-percent increase in the cost of tires as a result of the policy. China responded the following Sunday in retaliation by placing its own tariffs on imports of American poultry and automobiles.

I have an alternative suggestion: Instead of banning foreign imports, each U.S. senator should complete a refresher course on macroeconomics before assuming office. Based on Sen. Johanns’ proposal, I see no evidence this the former secretary of agriculture ever took one in the first place.

The city of Duluth, Minn., made the band Wilco and its members honorary citizens. Not to be outdone, the city of Madison, Wis., my stamping ground of 6 years, has proposed to do the same thing. Last week, Alderwoman Satya Rhodes-Conway and 10 cosponsors filed a resolution in the Common Council in Madison. It goes like this:

WHEREAS, Wisconsinites generally have a love/hate relationship with all things from Illinois but the sold-out crowd at the Overture Center on February 20, 2010 had only love for this band from Chicago; [...]

In an article in the Duluth News Tribune, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz pokes fun at the situation. I realize that he’s joking, but there’s a sad element of truth in his statement.

“If it’s a typical resolution for the city of Madison, it will be referred to 20 different city committees, it’ll be amended and we’ll probably vote on it in August 2012,” the mayor said.

On the one hand, although the Common Council could spend its time more productively, at least it isn’t passing resolutions that limit personal liberties or promote fiscal irresponsibility.

However, as Sarah Brodsky has communicated on this blog, legislating state symbols encourages people to ask the government to affirm their preferences. I happen to enjoy listening to Wilco, but why should it matter to me that Ald. Rhodes-Conway and Mayor Dave do as well? In a recent blog post, Mayor Cieslewicz confesses that he doesn’t like John Mayer. Does this mean that I shouldn’t like him too? If John Mayer is barred from becoming an honorary citizen in Madison, does he face a barrier to performing concerts in Madison?

I hope that Mayor Cieslewicz is only joking about this, too:

There are also questions being raised about where honorary citizens would be allowed to live. Some have suggested a referral to the Zoning Code Revision Advisory Committee to mull that one over, though the City Attorney has hinted darkly that he won’t allow it.

I hope that these cities stop short of providing tax advantages to their honorary citizens. I wouldn’t be that surprised if they did, though; Midwestern states have already demonstrated a willingness to bend their tax codes in an effort to attract glitz and glamour.

Legislators in New Hampshire are debating whether to declare apple cider the official beverage of their state. As is often the case with proposed state symbols, the bill was submitted at the request of a group of elementary school students. Students at another school have lobbied for milk to receive the honor instead.

New Hampshire state representatives talk about the official beverage proposals as if naming these symbols actually accomplished something:

Rep. Leigh Webb of Franklin saw a problem with both drinks, saying, “Neither is unique to New Hampshire. [...] It will help agriculture, but I’m not sure this is the way to do it.”

This legislator implies that state symbols have the power to shape consumption patterns and improve health:

State Rep. Brian Poznanski, a Democrat from Nashua, reflected on his youth in supporting cider.

“In junior high and high school, I drank sugar and more sugar,” Poznanski said. “There’s a huge obesity problem in this country.”

The students’ teacher has a more realistic perspective on state symbols, and acknowledges that an official beverage probably won’t change people’s actions any more than the official recognition of state animals does:

“My students wanted cider to be a symbolic representation of New Hampshire because of autumn and farm stands,” Nichols said. [...]

“We have a white-tailed deer as our state animal, and I’m not sure what that does for the economy, but it’s symbolic because it’s here. That’s what the children were going for, not to exclude milk by any stretch of the imagination.”

It’s clear from her statement that some people already associate apple cider with the state of New Hampshire. Her students nominated it because they’ve seen apples growing and they’ve seen stands selling cider. Many other New Hampshire residents identify these familiar sights with their state.

People are justified in thinking of apple cider as symbolic of New Hampshire. But it’s a bad idea for New Hampshire to create a new state symbol recognizing it, for the same reasons I’ve opposed the proliferation of official symbols in Missouri. Long lists of state symbols encourage people to ask the government to sign off on their opinions and preferences. They give the impression that for a symbol to count, it needs a state imprimatur.

However, there is a positive aspect of state symbols that I’ve overlooked. When people watch their representatives argue about whether cider or milk should be the state beverage, they may conclude that legislators don’t share their priorities. This could prompt them to realize that if they want to get things done in their state, they’re better off finding solutions in the market. Elected representatives are often apt to shy away from making waves about the things that matter to their constituents and instead talk about less consequential things like official drinks. Maybe the official political fish should be the red herring!

Today, I’m going to Jefferson City to testify on bills related to the initiative and referendum powers that the Missouri Constitution secures to this state’s citizens.  One of the points that I hope to make plain is related to an article that ran last week on the Kansas City Star’s Prime Buzz blog, which quoted the president of the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO as saying that the organization would work to prevent citizens from being able to vote on whether Kansas City or St. Louis should replace their earnings taxes, claiming, “This is not the will of the citizens.”

The irony, of course, is that nothing demonstrates “the will of the citizens” more than, say, letting them vote for themselves!

This is yet another example of a problem I have noted several times before: Powerful interests can (and do) game the system to prevent Missouri citizens from voting on issues of great importance. The most prominent example is the way that the Missouri Municipal League has for years been engaging in litigation strategically calculated to keep eminent domain reform off of the ballot. The most damning element, in my mind, is that at least in the case of the Missouri Municipal League, the opponents acknowledge the virtual certainty that eminent domain reform would be approved if the citizens were allowed to vote on it.

If an organization or some other group of citizens is concerned about the wisdom of any given ballot initiative, they are well within their rights to communicate their concerns to voters and to try to persuade Missourians not to approve the proposition. But to manipulate the system in such a way that citizens are denied the opportunity to adopt what they believe to be valuable changes to their laws is reprehensible.

Kansas City Prime Buzz links to a post about preregistering teenagers to vote. A bill introduced in the Kansas State Legislature would allow people as young as 14 to preregister.

In Missouri, you can register six months before your 18th birthday. That gives people plenty of time before they’re eligible to vote, so I don’t see a need for Missouri to adopt a new policy. Opening preregistration years early looks like another product of the mindset I discussed in my post about anti-obesity efforts — the notion that everything worth doing should be made easy by law.

The state should not make it unnecessarily difficult to register, or set up hurdles to prevent people from voting. However, asking people to wait until they’re almost old enough to vote before they register is not imposing a hardship on them. We do need laws to facilitate voter registration, but it’s OK if the process calls for a little bit of initiative on the part of voters.

We don’t allow 14-year-olds to sign up early for their driver licenses or concealed-carry permits. They wait until they’re old enough for the licenses and permits to matter to them. It’s reasonable for them to wait a few years before they register to vote, too.

The Missouri Record ran a column yesterday about “voter vouchers,” written by political science professor David Webber. He explains the program thusly:

Once a year, registered voters in Missouri should receive a voucher of between $25 and $50, which will allow them to contribute public funds to any candidate for a local or state elected office who has filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Vouchers should be redeemable in $10 denominations, allowing voters to spread their support among several candidates.

He writes in response to the recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance and corporations (an entirely different discussion, though one I believe was well-argued by Ilya Somin on the Volokh Conspiracy blog). Webber laudably hopes to increase citizen involvement, but voter vouchers wouldn’t accomplish that; in fact, they would likely cause more problems than they could potentially solve. After a discussion about voter vouchers with David Stokes and Audrey Spalding, we have come up with a number of arguments against them. I welcome any perspective, for or against, in the comment section.

1) Why would voter vouchers reduce apathy?

The main argument Webber uses in favor of voter vouchers is that they could combat voter apathy. I find it difficult to believe this would be the case. After all, the voucher would not be radically different from an ordinary vote, especially if each person is given an equal amount at no more of a (visible) cost to them than a vote would require. If a person cannot invest the time to research which candidate best aligns with his views and then head to the polls, why would giving him the potential “vote” of voucher money change his priorities? When somebody invests their own $50, there is far more incentive to research the candidates than when that same person is given $50 of “free” money.

2) Voter vouchers could potentially create a black market.

Voter vouchers would have a worth to some (campaign staff) that would likely exceed its worth to others (apathetic voters). This creates the potential for a black market to evolve, in which campaign staff trade, say, $30 in cash for the $50 vouchers. This would not increase voter involvement, but instead would intensify the very problems Webber was concerned with trying to solve. This could well foster a public-funded subsidy for campaigns that exists entirely independent of voter preferences, increasing ads and “media blitzes” by increasing funding to campaigns.

2) Votes are private; vouchers (and donations) are public.

Actual campaign donations (of a certain amount) are explicitly attached to the donor’s name. This is good for transparency, but a potential liability for those who might be publicly “expected” to allocate their money to a certain candidate or ballot issue, but privately wish to support a different candidate or issue. A vote cast is relatively private, but voter vouchers would not be. Even if the voucher donations were not made public in the same way that ordinary campaign donations are, such funding could be tracked in other ways that could increase an individual’s personal liability.

4) Public financing disproportionately helps incumbents.

Webber’s column in the Record pointed to Arizona and Maine as leaders in establishing public financing programs. But public financing does not decrease the influence of monied interests. In fact, a cap on expenditures aids the incumbent, who is already well-known and has “free” advertising in the form of thinly disguised constituent communication and favorable newspaper articles. Although voter vouchers would not necessarily lead to a prohibition of private donations, that would be the logical next step. On its own, this is not an argument against voter vouchers, but (in conjunction with the other arguments) it is an important consideration when considering any form of public financing.

5) Voter vouchers are funded by tax money that would be better spent elsewhere.

Webber estimates that it would cost, at maximum, $200 million to provide voter vouchers for the 4 million registered voters in Missouri. (This, of course, assumes that more people wouldn’t register to vote simply in order to benefit from a black market in voucher sales.) However you swing it, $200 million is a lot of money. It could be spent on any number of things (roads, schools, tax refunds) that would provide better public benefits than electoral campaigns would.

Voter apathy may or may not be a pressing problem, depending on one’s personal political philosophy, but voter vouchers are an unrealistic remedy. Even those who share a goal to increase citizen involvement should be wary of solutions that involve redistributing taxpayer money to candidates seeking public office. The repercussions of a voter voucher are too serious to ignore.

State Rep. Ellen Brandom of Sikeston has proposed for the third time in as many years that welfare recipients be tested for illegal drug use, and the editorial board of the Post-Dispatch thinks this is such a good idea that it should be extended even further:

There’s a logic to this, of course. Many employers conduct drug screenings as a routine matter. And Ms. Brandom has noted that taxpayers object to subsidizing drug use. No doubt they do.

But if Ms. Brandom is intent on protecting taxpayers, why just go after poor folks? And why screen only for drugs?

Lawmakers, like TANF recipients, also feed at the public trough, and plenty look as though they don’t lead the healthiest lifestyles. Given their grueling schedules and the rich food that lobbyists feed them, it’s no wonder.

This can drive up the cost of public employee health insurance. So why not, as a matter of routine, assess senators’ and state representatives’ body mass index and screen them for blood cholesterol levels?

Those found not to be taking care of themselves shouldn’t be automatically punished. But they shouldn’t be a burden on taxpayers either. Those found to have LDL (“bad”) cholesterol of, say, 200 or more, should be given a second chance before the public subsidy for their health insurance is suspended. Maybe free oatmeal, too.

What’s more, barely a year goes by without a lawmaker being involved in an alcohol-related driving offense. If welfare recipients can be cut off from public benefits for substance abuse, what about top state officials?

Read the whole thing here.  What a world it would be if politicians were actually constrained by the rules they force on the rest of us.

Many critics of the “Fair Tax” argue that it would hurt people who have lower incomes. This is not completely true. For many reasons, the Fair Tax proposal would have many positive consequences for low-income individuals and families.

First, low-income individuals and families would see an automatic increase in their take-home income that is equal to the amount that they currently pay in income tax. They would be able to take home 100 percent of their earnings, because there would be no income tax withheld if the Fair Tax were implemented. This would be a tremendous benefit for those who live from paycheck to paycheck. In their recent policy study for the Show-Me Institute, “Previous Estimates Overstate ‘Fair Tax’ Rates, Harms,” Prof. Joseph Haslag and Abhi Sivasailam note the following:

In Missouri, the personal income tax rate is 6 percent; if this tax were repealed, consumers would be richer by that same amount.

In addition to having more money in their bank accounts, low-income individuals and families would also benefit from a personal exemption that would help them pay for the increase in sales tax. Like most Fair Tax proposals, the Missouri bill includes a “prebate” check system that is based on federal poverty guidelines and the number of people in each family.

Plus, eliminating corporate income taxes would place downward pressure on consumer prices and increase individual income even further. This is because businesses pay for corporate income taxes by passing them onto their consumers, employees, and shareholders. They do this by increasing the price that they charge for their products and services, reducing the amount that they pay their employees, and/or by eliminating or reducing dividends to shareholders.

States that have zero income taxes experience higher rates of growth as a consequence. For example, as Jenifer Zeigler Roland and Dave Roland recently demonstrated, the absence of an income tax caused Tennessee to outgrow Missouri. And, as the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats. The status quo hurts low-income individuals and families because income taxes discourage economic progress and because this population is disproportionately impacted by periods of slow economic growth. Low-income individuals and families are more likely to lose their jobs, possess fewer resources to endure periods of financial hardship, and are more in need of the initial employment opportunities that a healthy economy provides.

As another benefit of the Fair Tax, low-income individuals and families would benefit from increased employment opportunities. Eliminating the income tax would attract new businesses to Missouri, and they in turn would increase employment opportunities and broaden the tax base. Missouri needs all the help that it can get right now — the state’s unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in December.

Something that critics of the Fair Tax don’t address is that it eliminates loopholes and income tax exemptions in the existing income tax system that favor some businesses and individuals over others. High income individuals and corporations would no longer be able to use such loopholes to their advantage. As a consequence, the proposal would eliminate the mechanisms that are built into current tax law that send income tax revenues toward earmarks and special interests.

Gov. Jay Nixon’s State of the State Address on Jan. 20 identified three main objectives for the coming year:

We must keep the jobs we have, and create thousands more.

We must build a granite foundation for Missouri’s future growth.

And we must balance the budget without raising taxes.

These are goals that Missourians can agree on, regardless of partisanship. The first goal is of particular interest to people in a state where the unemployment rate stands at 9.2 percent. No wonder it was first on the list.

In his speech, Nixon said he wants Missouri to be first in job creation. But, as of now, the state is 16th in a Tax Foundation ranking of the best environments for business. The state corporate income tax stands at 6.25 percent, the 16th-lowest in the nation. Although these numbers are good, they could be better. As the governor said, he wants to be number one.

Nixon points to the elimination of the franchise tax for 16,000 small businesses as contributing to job creation and business expansion. He is thereby acknowledging that reducing the tax burden on businesses has a positive impact on job creation. So, why not cut the corporate income tax rate? This would allow Missouri companies to reinvest more money into their businesses and generate more jobs. It would also make Missouri an even more attractive environment for other businesses to move into.

Opponents of such tax cuts often argue that they would result in a decrease in the revenue needed to support important state programs that assist needy families. However, the revenue generated from the state corporate income tax is a small fraction of all state revenue. More importantly, many of these programs are bloated and don’t serve their intended purposes effectively. A cut in the corporate tax rate, on the other hand, would help provide necessary jobs for people who are in need of a source of revenue to support their families. It would do this both by allowing current Missouri companies to expand hiring, and by drawing other companies to the state. Those already employed would also benefit, because workers bear slightly more than 70 percent of the burden of corporate taxes in the form of reduced wages, according to the Congressional Budget Office. A cut in the corporate tax rate also increases the value of companies, which would benefit anyone with a 401(k). Opponents of tax cuts for corporations argue that these tax cuts only benefit the companies themselves. But the burden of corporate taxes ultimately falls on people, whether it’s the customers, the workers, or the shareholders.

I commend Gov. Nixon for resisting the impulse to raise taxes, but even more impressive would be an effort to cut them.

In the Race to the Top, Texas is prudently sitting on the sidelines. Texas’ education commissioner explains why it’s not worth it for the state to comply with the Department of Education’s conditions:

“Even if we won the full amount, it would only run our schools for two days, so for that we weren’t going to cede control over our curriculum standards,” Mr. Scott said.

One-time cash awards won’t be very helpful to Race to the Top winners in the long term, as Texas officials can foresee. Nor will the process give reforms a chance to sprint ahead. Race to the Top asks states to make changes on paper that might not affect what goes on in schools at all. For example, to be competitive, states have to remove legislative caps on the number of charter schools that can operate. But they don’t have to approve any new charters. So, states could lift their charter caps, win cash and praise from Arne Duncan, and then turn down all charter proposals for spurious reasons. The states would have more money, but students wouldn’t have any more choices than what they started with.

There’s good reason to be skeptical of Race to the Top demands including abolishing caps on charters. As we’ve seen in Oregon, legislative caps are not always the main barrier to opening a charter. Oregon requires charter proposals to be submitted to school boards. These boards govern the same districts that the proposed charters would compete with, were they approved. Understandably reluctant to admit competitors to their districts, the boards deny charters on weak grounds or force them to resubmit proposals with minute improvements.

The Department of Education can’t correct this problem with a blanket directive to all states. It would have to examine each state’s charter approval process and identify which policies are holding back charter expansion. And it’s the same for other Race to the Top priorities: In some states, laws separating teacher data from student data may rule out merit pay, while for other states, merit pay may be illegal or difficult to implement for unrelated reasons. And so on.

Thus far, Missouri hasn’t shown Texas’ discretion — the state plans to apply for a Race to the Top grant. I hope Race to the Top won’t distract the state from meaningful reforms. Missouri officials should bear in mind that the ultimate goal is to make substantive policy improvements, not to win an award.

I learned from the Census Bureau’s advertising launch today that the bureau will be the top advertiser in the United States during the next few weeks. Agency officials intend to bombard the average person with pro-census messages 42 times.

The gargantuan campaign won’t end when the census forms are released. According to the Census Project’s website, some meteorologists will be reporting local census response rates along with high temperatures and the chance of rain.

Why the sudden onslaught of publicity for something that the country has always done every 10 years? The bureau is touting its campaign as “unprecedented,” as though this year’s census were different from previous counts and required a radically new approach. I noticed that sentiment in today’s advertising kickoff, particularly when MTV Networks’ executive vice president of public affairs stated that people should participate in the 2010 Census because it will be “the most important count of their lifetimes.” This characterization is puzzling given that we’re going to conduct another census a decade from now.

One thing that I’ll admit sets this census apart is its timing: As the economy slowly pulls out of a deep recession, any large enterprise that generates employment is welcome. Still, it would be unwise to expect the census to have a big effect on the economy, even through its biggest campaign ever. I agree with MyTwoCensus.com’s prediction that the Census Bureau’s hiring won’t spur economic growth because the jobs last only six weeks. Fortunately, no one is lobbying for continuous recounts to make those jobs permanent, the way fans of tax breaks for filmmakers would like Missouri to grant tax credit after tax credit, year round.

A legislator in Washington state wants to rewrite laws that characterize poor children as “disadvantaged” or “at-risk,” so that they instead read “at hope.” She thinks there’s a significant difference between those phrases:

Positive labeling is more than a gimmick or political correctness, Franklin says. She believes her idea could lead to a paradigm shift in state government and to changes in classrooms across the state.

The paradigm shift won’t happen, although political correctness is not to blame. There’s a place for political correctness; in some cases, updating legal language to be more sensitive is the right thing to do. For example, laws that were written many years ago may refer to medical conditions or physical disabilities in terms we would now consider offensive. That’s the reason behind this proposal to change the name of a Missouri agency. Racial designations are also susceptible to obsolescence, although switching to the politically correct language is not always easy, as the Census Bureau has found with the word “Negro.” (While many people take umbrage at the name, a diminishing number of people still identify with it, so removing it from forms could impair the accuracy of the Census.)

Politically correct language is useful when you want to avoid antagonizing people. However, you can’t solve a problem just by describing it with different words. Proponents of the “at hope” label argue that children respond to expectations, but the phrase wouldn’t change anyone’s expectations. People form expectations based on their experiences and on available information, not on the legal lexicon. The phrase could actually lower people’s expectations if they suppose that the state wouldn’t establish a euphemism to describe children who really had potential.

Expecting a phrase to transform education is like asking children to learn music with the “think system.” It’s an attractive idea, but it lacks a basis in reality.

Legislation has been filed in Wisconsin, my home state, that would make cheese the state’s official snack.

I am sympathetic to Sarah Brodsky’s argument that the role of the state should not include handing out endorsements, and that individuals shouldn’t look to the state for approval. However, I am OK with legislation about state symbols. I feel that the more time the state spends making non-financial endorsements such as for a “state bird” or “state animal,” the less time it spends passing legislation that increases bureaucracy or infringes upon our personal liberties.

A Springfield News-Leader article about the Census doesn’t mention the Constitution. Nor does it characterize the Census as a medium for your life story, as the Census Bureau would like you to believe. Instead, it makes participating in the Census sound like a great opportunity to express your dependence on government.

As David Stokes pointed out in the comments to my previous post, local governments want as many people as possible to mail back their Census forms, because Census data determine the allocation of federal funds. A manager in the Springfield Census office puts it bluntly:

“We have to show that there is a need and that there are people here in the community,” she said.

Here’s another quote from her, this time referring to those who don’t participate in the Census as if they were no better than recalcitrant drug addicts:

“We’re trying to be very genuine about how we help the community, and we can’t help them unless they help themselves by cooperating.”

To this manager, civic duty and the Constitution’s directives take second place (if they factor in at all) to grubbing for cash — an effort that will succeed only if you prove that a lot of people in your area need the money. I don’t think this is going to resonate with people. I expect that more people will be enthused about submitting their autobiographies than about begging for handouts.

The “let the government help you” theme reminds me of something from a campaign in 2000. As part of his bid for lieutenant governor, Wendell Bailey ran an ad on the radio that went like this: First, the announcer said, “Seniors have problems.” Then you heard the distraught voice of a senior crying, “We need help!” The announcer came back on with the slogan, “Wendell will work.” Bailey ended up losing the election, and I don’t think the tone of his radio advertising made the campaign any easier for him. People just don’t rally around the idea that they’re helpless.

I’d prefer that officials stress the constitutional source for the Census, but if they’re not going to do that, they might do better to focus on the stories rather than the tax dollars.

I believe there’s a connection between the state poet laureate and official state symbols — and someone else agrees! Writing in the Suburban Journals, Charles Mosley remarks that the governor honors animals and plants by designating them as official symbols, and that he likewise honors poets by conferring the title of poet laureate on them.

Mosley writes that these honors do less damage than other actions that elected officials could take. I agree that symbols and laureates don’t mess up the economy like some policies do, but the attitude they engender can still be harmful. We shouldn’t look to the state for approval of our accomplishments and opinions, nor should we ask the state to validate our favorite natural phenomena. If we give too much credence to state recognition, we may allow honor-seeking to distract us from more productive endeavors.

I recommend reading Mosley’s essay in full, especially his poem about sneezing. Even if it doesn’t inspire you to sympathy with ragweed sufferers, you’ll certainly come away with a greater sense of reverence for the English language.

The Constitution is a product of the Founders’ wisdom, and that includes its provisions for the national Census. Taking a census is a good idea. Performing government functions and writing new laws would be all but impossible if we didn’t know how many people lived in the United States or how the population was distributed across the country.

What the Constitution does not mandate (nor should) is that the Census serve as a vehicle for personal fulfillment. It’s not about your memories, hopes, and dreams. It’s just a bunch of numbers.

So I’m dismayed by the St. Louis Beacon’s announcement that the 2010 Census “Portrait of America” Road Tour is stopping in St. Louis on Monday morning. One of the activities listed is: “Record [your] story in one of two Portrait of America video kiosks.” Hoping that the video project might be a local initiative and not affiliated with the Census, I headed over to the Census blog, where I learned that the Census Bureau really is collecting personal videos from all these events. Visitors will also “have the opportunity to share their photos and stories.” To top it all off, the Census website states that “The 2010 Census is a portrait, and it belongs to all of us.”

The Road Tour activities are obviously voluntary; most people will mail in their Census forms without sharing any family stories with the government. Still, I see two problems with the campaign. First, it encourages people to adopt the attitude that the government is a member of our families — or, at least, our personal archivist. Second, it’s easily extended to children who aren’t yet able to differentiate between what citizens have to do to participate in the Census, and optional activities that aren’t required of them. Children may get the impression that giving a personal narrative to the government is just as important as filling out the Census form.

The Census Bureau is already trying to involve students. Here is another excerpt from the Census blog:

The first graders at Gateway Elementary School stole my heart today in St. Louis. I entered their library with a set of officials and there they were, dressed in little white t-shirts promoting the census.

Dressing up little kids to promote the Census is creepy, and I don’t think it’s what the Founders had in mind when they wrote Article 1, Section 2.

The Senate has finally passed a health care reform bill, after months of heated debate. The $871 billion plan, according to a CNN article by Alan Silverleib, must now be merged with a $1 trillion House bill passed in November, which should provide the president with a bill to sign before his 2010 State of the Union address.

The two bills share some commonalities. From the article:

Among other things, the House and Senate have agreed to subsidize insurance for a family of four making up to roughly $88,000 annually, or 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

They also have agreed to create health insurance exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses, the self-employed and the unemployed to pool resources and purchase less expensive coverage. Both the House plan and the Senate bill would eventually limit total out-of-pocket expenses and prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Insurers would also be barred from charging higher premiums based on a person’s gender or medical history. However, both bills allow insurance companies to charge higher premiums for older customers.

Medicaid would be significantly expanded under both proposals. The House bill would extend coverage to individuals earning up to 150 percent of the poverty level, or roughly $33,000 for a family of four. The Senate plan ensures coverage to those earning up to 133 percent of the poverty level, or just over $29,000 for a family of four.

One of the issues disagreed upon most strenuously by the two bodies of Congress is how to pay for the plan:

The House package is financed through a combination of a tax surcharge on wealthy Americans and new Medicare spending reductions.

Specifically, individuals with annual incomes over $500,000 — as well as families earning more than $1 million — would face a 5.4 percent income tax surcharge.

The Senate bill also cuts Medicare by roughly $500 billion. But instead of an income tax surcharge on the wealthy, it would impose a 40 percent tax on insurance companies that provide what are called “Cadillac” health plans valued at more than $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families.

The article points out that the president predicts the final bill will include a little of both proposals.

Another major divide is that the House bill includes a public option, but the Senate bill does not — instead, it includes nonprofit private co-ops overseen by the government.

Both bills would penalize those who do not purchase coverage.

The House bill would impose a fine of up to 2.5 percent of an individual’s income. The Senate plan would require individuals to purchase health insurance coverage or face a fine of up to $750 or 2 percent of his or her income, whichever is greater. Both versions include a hardship exemption for poorer Americans.

Businesses would also see an even greater penalty under both plans.

As for now, we can only sit back and wait as the House and Senate fight it out for a final bill of reform, and see whether it meets with any other roadblocks.

English is the official language of the state of Missouri. One official language is bad enough, but at least we don’t have two. Ottawa is finding that multiple official languages can cause hassles after a ceremony featuring speeches in official English left out any mention of official French. The mayor apologized — the news report doesn’t say in which language.

I can think of two explanations for the fact that people didn’t speak French at the ceremony: Either it’s reverse psychology, or people just speak whatever language they want without regard for state approval.

Here at Show-Me Daily, we have long documented the efforts of the Missouri Municipal League to prevent this state’s citizens from voting on constitutional amendments that would severely limit abuses of eminent domain in this state. For years now, the league (its leadership is made up of elected officials from across the state) has successfully persuaded cities to use your taxpayer dollars in order to help support their effort. Part of that effort has included litigation that the filers claimed to be an attempt to get a “fair” ballot title — but, in reality, it was intended to keep the measure off the ballot entirely by so delaying the signature-gathering process that it would be impossible to collect the necessary number within the limited time available.

Up until a few weeks ago, advocates of eminent domain reform had no real proof that the Municipal League’s lawsuits had this suspected insidious purpose. On Nov. 20, however, at a meeting of the Missouri Bar Association’s Eminent Domain Committee, a managing partner in the law firm representing the Municipal League was asked to give an update on the litigation. She had this to say (audio transcript; emphasis added):

It’s not a real big update, but … um … from the standpoint of the initiative petition, uh, we did partially win, uh, in the … at the trial court level, and it’s on expedited appeal for the western district, um, which will be argued in December, with the main objective being to delay the gathering of signatures and, um, hopefully we’re … we’re accomplishing that.

Missouri Citizens for Property rights, the group spearheading the petition effort, has asked the court for permission to supplement the record with the audio evidence of the attorney’s statement, and should hear today whether the court will agree. If the court chooses to take her statement seriously, it could assign sanctions against her firm for violating the ethical rules (yes, attorneys are supposed to understand ethics) governing the legal profession.

The story has started to gain interest nationwide — as it should. It is yet another example of powerful people trying to prevent ordinary citizens from having their own say on important issues. The AP article has so far been run by media outlets in Atlanta, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Miami, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Dayton, Ohio. Here in Missouri, the story has been reported in Kansas City, Springfield, Columbia, Jefferson City, Joplin, Cape Girardeau, and St. Louis — although it is interesting to note that the Ost-Pay Ispatch-Day, for some reason, has not yet covered this story.

Kevin Horrigan confirms my suspicion that the idea for a state dog was thought up by some schoolchildren. Several of Missouri’s symbols had their start as class projects, and the Newfoundland proposal continues that trend.

Besides serving as convenient research topics for fourth graders, state symbols appeal to people in general because of the shared experiences they represent. Politicians have known this for a while. Congressman William D. Vandiver mentioned some features of the state to elicit listeners’ sympathy in his famous speech:

I come from a country that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats; and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri, and you have got to show me.

Vandiver apparently thought that people would associate those things with the state back in 1899. Clearly, such associations change over time. Cotton is no longer the first thing that comes to mind when people think of Missouri, and our state flower is the white hawthorn, not the cocklebur. Legislators might be more cautious about approving new symbols if they considered how obsolete the symbols may become. Just as no one would call out the cocklebur in a speech today, future fourth graders may laugh about our state invertebrate or dessert.

Among the elements of the health bill being considered by Congress is a requirement that every adult would either have to purchase a health insurance policy or face punitive fines to be collected by the Internal Revenue Service. There has been widespread debate in legal circles about whether the courts would uphold such a requirement, but lawmakers in several states are trying to do what they can to insulate their citizens from such a requirement. In Missouri, state Sen. Jane Cunningham has already persuaded half of her colleagues to cosponsor Senate Joint Resolution 25, an amendment to the state Constitution that would recognize the citizens’ right to decide for themselves whether they will participate in any health care system.

Under this amendment, the government would be denied the authority to prevent citizens from offering or accepting direct payment for health care services, and it would not be permitted to substantially limit the purchase or sale of health insurance in private health care systems. In addition to recognizing that this is a sort of common-sense freedom that ought to be enshrined in the Constitution, the proponents of SJR 25 are aware that state constitutions are permitted to afford liberties above and beyond those secured under the U.S. Constitution, and that there is a possibility the courts might find that even a federal statute cannot violate those additional rights.

This proposed amendment has sparked the interest of some in the media, including an article from the St. Louis Beacon (authored by William Freivogel, director of the School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale) with a headline suggesting that, if passed, SJR 25 would itself violate the U.S. Constitution. I quickly posted a rejoinder in the comment section of that article, but I felt it would be worthwhile to restate in this forum the points I made in those comments.

There are four major constitutional issues raised by the potential federal health insurance mandate and Sen. Cunningham’s proposed amendment: 1) Does the proposed law fit within the powers that the Constitution gives to Congress? 2) Does the proposed law infringe upon powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment? 3) Does the requirement to buy health insurance unconstitutionally infringe upon the individual liberties secured to American citizens under the First, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments? And, 4) Does the Supremacy Clause allow for the enforcement of a federal statute even if that statute conflicts with individual rights protected under a state constitution? I’ll address these points in order.

As we all remember from high school, congressional authority is limited to those powers explicitly granted by the Constitution. In this case, the question would be whether the Constitution gives Congress the authority to punish citizens for refusing to purchase health insurance.

Those backing the bill suggest that this authority is part of part of Congress’ power “to regulate commerce … among the several states[.]“ It is true that courts have generally interpreted this power very broadly, resulting in the decision that a farmer named Filburn was bound by agricultural regulations even though he was not taking his grain to market, as well as the decision that Angel Raich was subject to federal drug laws even though her medical marijuana was homegrown and neither bought nor sold.

But courts have also recognized limits to congressional authority under the Commerce Clause. In U.S. v. Lopez, the Supreme Court held that the Commerce Clause did not permit Congress to create a federal law banning possession of firearms in a school zone. In U.S. v. Morrison, the court struck down a law that addressed the subject of gender-based violent crime. The primary reason that the court struck down the laws in Lopez and Morrison was that the subjects Congress sought to regulate lacked a clear impact on commerce among the states.

While much of the health insurance industry is handled within the bounds of individual states (it is very unusual to be able to purchase insurance from a company in a state other than the one in which you are domiciled), I believe that courts will be inclined to find that health insurance as a whole is an issue with a sufficient connection to interstate commerce to permit congressional regulation. But, if Congress passes a bill mandating that individuals must either buy health insurance or face financial sanctions, courts will have to answer a very specific question: Does the power to regulate interstate commerce give Congress the authority to penalize citizens who do not wish to engage in commerce? As Prof. Randy Barnett pointed out at a recent Heritage Foundation debate, the Supreme Court has never faced such a question, so we cannot be certain how it will be answered. I tend to agree with Barnett that the Court’s response will likely hinge on the solicitor general’s ability to explain which aspects of citizens’ lives (if any) would remain beyond the reach of congressional regulation if the Court permitted these mandates to be enforced.

One of the law professors cited by Freivogel argued that even without relying on the Commerce Clause, authority for the health insurance mandate could be found in Congress’ power “to lay and collect taxes … [to] provide for the … general welfare of the United States[.]” I disagree. While this provision might permit the creation of a tax-based public health insurance system like Medicare that all workers pay into, this is not what is anticipated in the insurance mandate under consideration, which is neither tax-based nor public. Nor would the alleged “tax” be collected from all workers. Furthermore, even if the fees for failing to purchase health insurance were classified as a tax, Congress is specifically denied the authority to impose capitation taxes “unless in proportion to the census,” a requirement that this proposal does not seem to meet.

Assuming the courts were to determine that Congress does have the general authority to impose a health insurance mandate, the next question would be whether the issue should be reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. While Congress has for decades been active on the subject of health care, this does not necessarily imply that Congress may remove state governments’ ability to decide whether their citizens should be punished for failing to purchase health insurance. In fact, this is an issue that several states have previously dealt with, in which at least one state (Massachusetts) has adopted such a mandate and a number of other states have considered — yet refrained from — doing the same. Federal courts have previously been very willing to permit congressional interference even in areas that were traditionally the sole province of the states, but considering the current ideological composition of the Supreme Court, it is possible (although, admittedly, unlikely) that a majority might take this opportunity to redefine (or restore) the balance of power between the federal government and the states.

Most of the arguments I’ve heard so far regarding the proposed health insurance mandate have neglected to address whether it might violate the First, Fifth, or Ninth Amendments, but I think this is an oversight. The Supreme Court has previously recognized that the Constitution protects citizens’ rights to associate with others of their choosing, to enter into contracts, to make their own decisions regarding health care, and, of course, their right to privacy. A violation of any one of these rights could be sufficient to invalidate the health insurance mandate.

While some people may not carry health insurance because it is unaffordable, many choose not to purchase health insurance. Some people’s religions may not permit the use of modern medicine, while others may not believe it to be effective. Still others are simply confident enough in their propensity for health that they are willing to risk the costs of illness or injury in order to direct their money to concerns that they believe to be more pressing. And there are some who, recognizing that most people pay far more to insurance companies than they are ever likely to need for their own treatment costs, would prefer to self-insure by creating their own health fund. For each of these people, a congressional directive to purchase a health insurance policy would mean giving up a huge amount of money — as well as a significant amount of privacy — committing themselves to a contract for goods and services that they do not want, and in some cases may be prohibited from using.

There is a principle in American law that says the government may not punish someone for exercising a constitutional right, and neither may it offer a benefit on condition of the citizen’s willingness to refrain from exercising a constitutional right. In the case of an individual health insurance mandate, the government would be telling its citizens that if they choose not to associate with an insurance company by entering into a contract under which they will be required to pay large sums of money while also disclosing private information about their health, they will be subject to very large fines. I think that this is clearly an infringement of some, if not all, of the constitutional rights listed above.

Unfortunately, establishing an infringement of rights does not end the analysis. In fact, the Supreme Court has long permitted infringement of these kinds of liberty, as long as the government could advance what the court considered to be a sufficiently important interest in doing so. In the case of the individual health insurance mandate, the goal advanced by the government would be to bring about slightly lower insurance premiums and, thus, to increase the number of people with access to health care. This is just a hunch, but I suspect that courts will not find this interest sufficiently compelling to justify forcing citizens to purchase coverage that they do not want and may have no intention of using, particularly when doing so necessarily requires an invasion of their privacy.

My final point is that if the courts find that the U.S. Constitution does not afford citizens protection from being forced to participate in a health care system, the courts will have to decide whether the Supremacy Clause permits a federal statute to be applied in such a way that it violates an individual freedom recognized by a state constitution. As I pointed out in my first comment, it is very possible — perhaps even likely — that the courts will decide that these state constitutional amendments do not bind the federal government. It is important to note, however, that this sort of holding would not strike these provisions down as “unconstitutional.” Rather, it would simply prevent their application against the federal government — perhaps foiling the hopes of the state constitutions’ drafters, but certainly not preventing the effectiveness of the provision against state governments and their subdivisions.

Following Tuesday’s commentary on a Tax Foundation report, MO Rage has written another post that has me scratching my head. This one’s about government spending, and it contains the following statement:

I totally agree that we need to reduce spending but, frankly, not on jobs.

All government spending translates into a job for somebody. Even when it’s as simple as sending checks directly to citizens, government spending keeps people employed producing the envelopes and printing the checks.

So cutting government spending puts people out of work — there’s no way around it. The good news is that governments that spend less can tax less, leaving more wealth available for job creation in the private sector.

It’s something to keep in mind when state agencies try to ward off spending cuts, as they did earlier this week.

As our regular readers will remember, on Nov. 18, the Show-Me Institute published a study that discusses recent research on the impact that charter schools are having on students’ academic achievement. At that time, we sent the study to newspapers across the state, along with an op-ed I had written discussing its findings. As is the case with any op-ed, my ability to address nuances in the research was dramatically limited by the need to keep it short enough for newspapers to consider publishing it. Thus, I was unable to go into great detail about the various studies and instead focused on the primary goal of the piece: making people aware of this new study so they could consider it for themselves.

When the Springfield News-Leader expressed interest in running the op-ed, they asked me to trim it down by 50 words so that it would fit their publishing parameters. As I hope readers will see, an op-ed’s final form rarely allows the author to offer a comprehensive picture of all the information they would convey if space were no constraint. Perhaps as a result of this necessary brevity, some of the News-Leader’s readers have posted a few skeptical comments about my op-ed, so I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to the points they raise.

The first issue I’d like to address is that of my motives for writing on this topic. The commenter writing under the name “Ray Smith” suggested that I am part of a general effort to “undermine public education,” and that I have simply seized upon President Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative (which, in part, promotes the expansion of charter schools) as an opportunity to promote my own agenda.

I do have one comprehensive, all-encompassing agenda when it comes to the subject of education, and I don’t care who knows it. I want to make sure that all parents have the greatest possible range of options when it comes to deciding where their children will be educated. While I, myself, am a proud product of an excellent public school system, it does not matter to me in the slightest if parents prefer traditional public schools, charter schools, parochial schools, or secular private schools. All that concerns me is that children get the best available educations — and I firmly believe that the greatest likelihood of achieving that goal is to fashion education policy in such a way that parents can vote with their feet if they decide a school is not meeting their child’s needs.

As should be clear, many parents do not believe that their local traditional public schools are the best educational option for their children — and, with that being the case, it makes the most sense to help those parents find alternatives that will serve their families better. I suggested in my op-ed that, to the extent that charter schools expand the range of options available to parents, they serve as a step toward this goal. Thus, expanding charter school availability represents good policy. In my mind, it is merely a bonus that the best academic research is showing that most (though far from all) charter schools are performing as well as or better than their traditional public school counterparts when it comes to certain measures of academic achievement.

Which brings us to Mr. Smith’s suggestion that I believe charter schools to be a “magic bullet” that will solve the education problems rampant in our state — and his intimation that I was ignoring evidence that I did not like. To the contrary, when writing the op-ed, I wanted to make sure that I pointed out the evidence in our own study that calls into question whether charter schools always generate better results than traditional public schools. Mr. Smith correctly points out that the Stanford study shows that a significant number of the nation’s charter schools appear to be attracting students, even though the schools do not currently appear to measure up to their traditional school counterparts in regard to academic achievement as measured by standardized tests. The reason I addressed the Stanford study in the op-ed was because the authors of the recently released Show-Me Institute study did not have access to research that isolated Missouri’s charter schools, and I believed that it would be valuable to highlight the fact that, in spite of the Stanford study’s broader findings, the data do suggest that Missouri’s charter schools are performing better than most.

Here at Show-Me Daily, I can address the Stanford study’s findings a little more broadly. For charter opponents, of course, the suggestion that some charter schools are not improving their students’ academic achievement is a clear signal that these schools need to close. Maybe … but maybe not. I have previously stated on this very blog that I do not generally oppose the closure of especially bad charter schools. But the facts also bear out that official action is not necessarily needed to close these schools, because in cases where the situation is truly bad, parents will voluntarily move their children to a different school and that bad school will fail for lack of funding (much as any other business would).

Also,as I note in the op-ed, parents consider a wide array of factors when deciding where to send their children to be educated — and, for many parents, academic achievement may not be the most important factor. So, if a charter school lags a little bit behind its traditional charter school counterparts in academic performance, but dozens of parents still want to send their children there, maybe government officials shouldn’t force its closure. After all, we don’t allow government officials to tell wealthy parents what factors they can consider in choosing a school for their children, so why should we assume that government officials are within their rights to tell lower-income parents what factors they can consider?

And, finally, I will add that I would actually prefer that Missouri not seek “Race to the Top” funding. In my opinion, the Tenth Amendment should preclude the federal government from interfering with educational matters, because they have always been reserved to the states. While I do think it would be good policy to expand the availability of charter schools in our state, if Missouri’s legislators are not persuaded that a particular policy is the best idea for our families, they certainly shouldn’t adopt it simply because the federal government is dangling money out there as an incentive.

[In the interest of transparency, please allow me to post this note to indicate my change of perspective. I agree with Sarah and Donald in the comment section below that the use of President Obama's campaign logo in classrooms was just a mixup and had nothing to do with Mr. Obama. My apologies. — CDH]

Apparently, President Barack Obama’s presence in public classrooms is not limited to songs or writing assignments.

According to an article in the Columbia Daily Tribune, supplies that display Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign logo have been sold in public schools in Columbia, Mo.

Link via Drudge Report.

Somehow, amidst the politically charged health care discussions, it seems that some have overlooked one practical thing: If the health care insurance rolls increase, as some expect, will there be enough doctors in the future? The number of graduates from U.S. medical schools has been constant at about 16,000 per year in the recent past. But our country grew by 50 million people from 1980 to 2000, and the number of new doctors has fallen as a percentage of the population. Just a year ago, the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimated that if there are no changes in the American demographic distribution, there will be a shortfall of more than 150,000 physicians by the year 2025. The number of new students enrolled in medical schools reached a new record of 18,036 this year (up only 1.6 percent from last year). But there will not be enough. In fact, the AAMC indicates that an increase in enrollment by more than 30 percent will not make up for the growing demand. If that is an expected demand, shouldn’t there be some indication of a supply-side response?

If one thinks about the AAMC report, it seems that there may be an even greater problem than the organization has estimated. That is because few medical students are choosing primary care specialties. The growth of the aging baby boomer population means there will be an even greater shortfall. In some states, people are concerned about these issues, but there seems to be little discussion in Missouri.

In Wisconsin, it was found that they were short 374 primary care physicians this year, and by 2030, there will be a 14-percent shortfall. In Massachusetts, the state’s health care experiment resulted in 440,000 new people with health care insurance, and their problems are going to be even greater given that about 52 percent of their medical residents in training are planning to move out of state after graduation. In Connecticut, just like in many other states, there is an aging physician population among those involved in “family practice,” and doctors are finding it difficult to recruit young physicians.

Both the House and Senate bills proposed to reform the nation’s health care system speak about the need to increase the numbers of primary health care practitioners. However, if one performs a comparison, a resolution to this issue does not appear to be addressed in a direct manner in either version. The bills under discussion now seem aimed at increasing incentives to providers, but not increasing provider numbers. It takes years to train competent physicians. If these bills (or some combination of them) pass into law, and if provider incentives attract more Americans to want to become physicians, this country will still continue to have an inadequate physician supply for many years. This lag period will harm us all.

In the past some have thought that physicians induce a service demand. How that figures into our current problem was discussed elsewhere recently. But physician-induced demand does not matter when there are not enough physicians. If things continue as they are now, someday you will be old and sick and unable to find a competent physician.

I was very pleased with how this morning’s interview went with Charlie Brennan. I hope you’ll give it a listen.

It has been brought to my attention, however, that at least one person in a position of relative influence in the city of St. Louis was not pleased with what I had to say. He claimed that Mr. Brennan and I were both “McCarthyites,” attempting to scare citizens with false claims about imagined evils. I’ll explain the critic’s displeasure as best I can, and I hope that our readers will offer their own perspectives in the comment section.

The central point I wanted to make in the interview was that I see in Missouri an unsettling pattern of powerful people working to prevent citizens from having their say on matters of public importance. Mr. Brennan and I discussed several examples of such behavior — most of which were noted in yesterday’s blog post. My critic felt that we were unfairly assigning blame to government officials. He also claimed that the examples we cited in no way constituted a “pattern” of bad behavior.

My critic’s first argument was that I was leveling baseless charges against government officials. Specifically, he said that I had accused a particular elected official of ordering Gustavo Rendon’s arrest. In fact, if you listen to the interview, it is clear that I did not do so, and I continued to refrain from doing so even as this critic was trying to goad me into it. As I tried to communicate in the interview, it may well be a coincidence that Mr. Rendon’s arrest took place outside of the church attended by a city official who champions the plan that Mr. Rendon’s flyers criticized. But, regardless of what the facts eventually show about whether this official actually played a part in Mr. Rendon’s arrest, the circumstances allow for a reasonable inference that this was the case because of previous (and ongoing) situations in which powerful people have tried to squelch the voices of those who oppose them. My conversation with Charlie Brennan simply laid out part of the reason why I am concerned that it may not, in fact, have been a coincidence — but it is up to everyone else to draw their own conclusions.

As for those other situations, my critic acknowledged that the Northeast Ambulance and Fire District is a concrete example of powerful people attempting to intimidate and silence opposition (although he wrote off those officials as “a bunch of crooks”). But he took issue with the rest of my examples. In regard to the governmental effort to eliminate Jim Roos’ “End Eminent Domain Abuse” sign, he first tried to say that matter was settled years ago (I reminded him that, in fact, it is still being litigated), then he tried to say that the sign was “an eyesore” that is bad for the community. I responded that one man’s eyesore is another’s call to action, and pointed out that the Constitution does not generally permit aesthetic considerations to trump a citizen’s right to express a political opinion. My critic was (apparently) unpersuaded by that point.

When I pointed out how, at a meeting in which Paul McKee addressed residents about the proposed NorthSide Regeneration Project, public officials sent staff members to prevent a resident from filming the meeting, my critic argued that because I could not at the moment recall whether the meeting was held at a public facility (it was) and whether the meeting was open to all interested citizens (again, it was), my concern was not valid. As for the Missouri Municipal League’s efforts to prevent Missourians from voting on a constitutional amendment that would restrict eminent domain abuse, I don’t recall any specific objection by my critic, just a return to the claim that these were (in his words) unsubstantiated claims about isolated incidents, and that no fair-minded person could draw from these my conclusion that they represented a pattern of powerful people trying to prevent citizens from having their say on issues of public importance. He demanded that I offer more examples.

Now, I don’t believe this critic will ever really be satisfied — but my call to you, gentle readers, is to think of further examples (from anywhere in the state) that also seem to fit this pattern, then please post them in the comments. I’d love to start keeping a running tally.

A few days ago, the Joplin Globe ran an editorial that discussed the micro issue of the relationship between Gov. Jay Nixon and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and the macro issue of the role of the lieutenant governor in Missouri government. It was a nice article, using a recent news issue as an opening to discuss a much larger question, which was a lot of fun to read and consider.

The Globe thinks that the political infighting between the governor and the lieutenant governor could be ended by having them elected on a ticket, as opposed to the current system in which they each run independently. Our current system has resulted in Missouri having a governor and lieutenant governor from opposite parties five times, or for 20 cumulative years, since World War II. From 1977 to 1993, we had different parties holding the two offices every year. The Globe is certainly right that changing that system might end the infighting, although the governor and lieutenant governor in Illinois were both Democrats, and they hated each other before the governor was forced to (how should I put this nicely?) step aside in preparation for a lifestyle change. But anyway …

Even though the Globe is correct that political sniping might decrease, I don’t support electing the lieutenant governor on a ticket with the governor. My antennas go up whenever anyone advocates making government run more smoothly so they can go out and get things done for the working people of this state! (The last sentence should be read aloud, like a politician giving a stump speech.) The Globe quotes former state Sen. Richard Webster:

He proposed that the candidates for the two offices appear together as a unit on the ballot, thus encouraging a spirit of cooperation and heading off the sort of political gamesmanship evident now.

I take P.J. O’Rourke’s attitude that preventing politicians from governing is like preventing a pit bull from eating your child, so needless to say I don’t give a whit about making government function more smoothly. (Streamlining government services in order to save tax dollars is a different story.)

When Missourians go to the polls on vote on the lieutenant governor, they know (at least, some of them know) that they are electing someone for two main jobs: to step in as governor during extreme circumstances (which just happened in 2000), and to serve as a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. If the people of the state want someone who belongs to a different party than the governor to serve in those roles, that should be up to them.

The fact is that Missourians chose Jay Nixon to be governor and Peter Kinder to be lieutenant governor. If they had run on a ticket, Missouri would have gotten a lieutenant governor that the majority of the state did not want to elect. I think that giving people the fullest choice possible, so they can elect the person that they wanted to elect, is the most important thing. If we have to live with a poorly functioning tourism board as a result, that is fine with me.

I’ll be a guest on Charlie Brennan’s morning show on KMOX tomorrow from around 9:30–10:00 a.m. What will I be discussing? I’m glad you asked. …

Although we haven’t yet discussed it on the blog, I hope that all of our readers are aware that the St. Louis Police arrested Gustavo Rendon, husband of the president of the North Side Community Benefits Alliance. Why? Because he was distributing fliers that opposed the NorthSide redevelopment project recently approved by the city. Even worse, he just happened to be doing so outside the church of Alderwoman April Ford-Griffin, a staunch supporter of the project. So, two police officers arrived, threatened to put his kids in foster care if he didn’t stop distributing the fliers, then arrested him.

The charge? Affixing advertisements to private property.

Fortunately, the city attorneys quickly realized that the ordinance under which they arrested him didn’t, you know, prohibit what he was doing. And even if it had prohibited distributing fliers that communicated purely political ideas, the ordinance probably would have been unconstitutional anyway. So, today they announced that they were dropping the charges.

The bigger problem, which I hope to address with Mr. Brennan, is that Mr. Rendon’s arrest is suggestive of a much larger problem: powerful people trying to stop citizens from having their say on important public issues. In this case, it was police officers arresting someone for communicating opposition to a redevelopment project. In Jim Roos’ case, a city agency is trying to destroy a sign calling for an end to eminent domain abuse. In the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District, officials tried to fine and ban from future meetings certain taxpayers who protested the district’s insane spending. And, of course, the Missouri Municipal League is using taxpayer money for a lawsuit with the primary goal of keeping off the ballot a constitutional amendment that would go a long way toward ending eminent domain abuse in the state — because they know it will pass if citizens are allowed to vote!

So, like I said, tune in tomorrow morning as Charlie Brennan and I discuss these issues. Who knows, there might even be some interesting surprises involved. And, if you can’t listen to tomorrow’s show, keep an eye on the Policy Pulse website, where Audrey Spalding is continuing to do excellent work reporting on abuses of taxpayer money and government authority.