Kansas Economic Freedom Index launched

by Bob Weeks on March 22, 2010

The purpose of the Kansas Economic Freedom Index is to identify Kansas legislators who vote in favor of economic freedom — and those who don’t. Financial issues like taxes and spending will be important, but I will include issues like smoking bans and seat belt laws.

This is the first version of the index. As I become aware of votes that should be included, and as new votes are taken, I’ll update the index.

In the index, each bill has a weight. This is a number from 1 to 10, with 10 meaning the bill is of greatest importance. When I calculate the index value for a legislator, I add up the weights for the bills being considered, and add up the weights the legislator “earned” based on their votes, and that’s the basis of the calculation.

As this is a new project that I just started, I welcome feedback. Please write to bob.weeks@gmail.com or call me at 316-708-1837, day or evening.

The permanent page for the index is Kansas Economic Freedom Index.

Links to current versions of the Kansas Economic Freedom Index:

Kansas Economic Freedom Index, Senate
Kansas Economic Freedom Index, House of Representatives

Tagged as: Freedom, Government spending, Kansas legislature, Kansas state government, Taxation

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 james March 22, 2010 at 9:13 pm: Awesome idea Bob! I can’t wait to see the votes over time!
2 B.D. March 23, 2010 at 11:01 am: Good idea, but who decides the weight to be assigned a particular issue. That seems to be a issue that is very subjective and potentially invalidating in terms of results. I think there are statistical calculations that can be used to adjust for such things, but regardless you could do a basic calculation equally weighting matters, and then one weighting the issue. I think it is valid to weight an issue, it’s just how you do it. You would be better off figuring out how to do it right. It will never be flawless.’

How one views a matter can be legitimate. Sometimes something that looks like it is contrary to freedom is actually a measure to preserve freedom. Take smoking for example. Those who don’t want the law see it as invasive of personal freedom because it says they can’t do it indoors, especially as to the use of their property and who they invite in. Those just as supportive of personal freedom see smoking as invasive of their rights because they can’t avoid it without giving up their freedom to do the same thing the smoker is doing. How do you weight the choice between which is supportive of rights and which isn’t? It’s not like it’s the Second Amendment on a deal like that where it isn’t black and white.

Also, you can’t tell what topics were relied upon, or bills. Is there going to be some kind of an index or shorthand to show which ones were counted?
3 Bob Weeks March 23, 2010 at 12:26 pm: B.D. to answer your question quickly, as I have only a moment right now, there should be a list of bills with descriptions and weights at the end, after this list of legislators. Did you see that? Perhaps more explanation is needed there.

No doubt the weights are subjective and anyone else who creates something like this would probably choose different votes and assign them different weights.
4 Dismal Scientist March 23, 2010 at 9:32 pm: Mr. Weeks, this is an excellant idea and long past due. I know for a fact that Oklahoma and Missouri are more business friendly than Kansas. The amount of regulation and licensing in this state is enough to discourage many would be entrepreneurs to just throw up their hands and say “to hell with it”!