Property rights in Wichita. At yesterday’s meeting of the Wichita City Council, the city approved its legislative agenda. The city incorporates the agenda of the League of Kansas Municipalities. One plank: “We support increased flexibility for local governments to use eminent domain for economic development purposes, including blight remediation, without seeking legislative approval.” Susan Estes of Americans for Prosperity appeared before the council, asking members to strike this provision, as the taking of property by eminent domain for the purposes of giving it to someone else is one of the worse violations of property rights and freedom. No council member was moved to make such a motion.
Importance of open records. In a press release from 2008, the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government noted the problems with open and transparent government in Kansas: “Kansas recently failed an open government test by the Better Government Association, an independent non-partisan government watchdog group based in Chicago. Among other things, the BGA researches solutions that promote transparency and accountability in government. ‘The threat today is real,’ said Randy Brown, executive director of the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government. ‘We are seeing closed government problems popping up around the state. Some local governments are doing well. But for Kansans who understand that open government at all levels is essential to democracy, things are getting worse, not better.’” … Yesterday the Wichita City Council provided another example in how open and transparent government is not valued.
Wichita city news. The communications staff of the City of Wichita maintains a city news and announcements page. Staff has ample time (and a half-million dollar budget) to write articles covering — in detail — when carolers will be at the airport. But substantive news that the city is opposed to — say the successful filing of a petition challenging a Wichita city ordinance — doesn’t make it on this page.
Cronyism in America. The harm of crony capitalism is explained in a short video from Economic Freedom Project. Susan Dudley says this in the video: “Crony capitalism means that your success as an entrepreneur depends less on how well you meet your customers’, and more on how well you curry favor from the government. It’s a problem because it means that valuable resources — including the best and brightest minds — are diverted from productive uses towards unproductive seeking government favors.” … In its conclusion, the video sates: “Without special protections that can only be provided by an increasingly powerful government, big businesses would have to compete to earn their profits, instead of taking them straight from taxpayers. We all agree: Businesses should succeed or fail based on the value they provide to their consumers, not based on their ability to influence the political system. And that’s what happens in a free market.” … It should be noted that the economic development policies of Wichita are firmly rooted in crony capitalism.
Leave a Reply