I received this analysis and commentary from a friend of mine. It concerns an article that appeared on the front page of The Wichita Eagle a few months ago. I have removed mention of specific names.

I was appalled to read the front page editorial that appeared above the fold on the front page of the April 22, 2007 Wichita Eagle. Let me count some of the egregious flaws in this article:

1) The article mentions the "...a drop off of $185 million..." in state revenues but does not mention the primary reason. Let me provide it: "The new legislation setting aside $122.7 million for the school finance 'lock-box' and $80 million for statewide maintenance and disaster relief is primarily responsible for the large adjustment to this (revenue) source." (source: April 19, 2007 Kansas Legislative Research State General Fund receipt revisions for FY 2007 and FY 2008, page 5). This point alone deserves a correction.

There's $202.7 million that explains the main reason for this drop off. The money is being spent on increased state spending programs. Add to this the money that was shifted out of the general fund and over to the highway fund, "...enacted in 2004 for the Comprehensive Transportation Program reducing the amount of sales and use tax receipts deposited directly into the SGF (state General Fund)..." (ibid, page 1).

What was neglected in this article was the fact that Governor Sebelius and many legislative spending advocates want even more spending in both the current and next fiscal years. Last week Governor Sebelius proposed a $54 million increase in the current fiscal year plus $146 million in FY 2008 that begins July 1. That salient fact was missing in this article.

2) You repeat the lie that the tax cuts in 1997 and 1998 led to dramatic declines in state revenues leading to spending "cuts." That did not occur. State General Fund expenditures in FY 2000 (1999-2000) were 4.1% above the previous year's levels when the last of the 1995, 1997, & 1998 tax cuts phased in. The state ran into budget problems as part of the 2001 recession and the negative economic impact of the September 11 atrocities. These events were separated by several years. I have the FY 1999, 2000, 2001, & 2002 budgets if you need to revisit that fiscal history.

If you will look at past state budgets, the state has increased spending every year from 1993 to 2002. There was a decline that started during the recession in 2001 and the other events of that terrible year but this commentary tying the 1998 tax cuts to a budget shortfall four years later needs to be part of Brownlee's operation on the editorial page and not on the news pages.

3) The tiny tax cut enacted this year at $36 million (ibid, page 1) is magnified by stretching this out over five years. This 2007 tax cut is slightly more than 1/2 of 1 percent of the state's general fund spending this year.

If you used the same measuring tools the state's spending it total in the billions on top of the total state spending (All Funds budget) that will far exceed $60 billion over five years (I can inflate these numbers the same way [the reporter] did, but I don't have a front page position to have my commentary appear).

[The reporter's] article does provide some of the numbers so I could calculate the five year phase out of the franchise tax is $135 million (I did that addition) and the total for the social security tax cut over five years is only $56.9 million.

That's a total of only $191.9 million. Where's the other tax cuts to get to $570 million total this commentary claims? Where's the rest of the $378 million?

This editorial commentary then ignores the earned income tax credit hike that was part of this legislation. The EITC is where the Dept. of Revenue ships tax funds out to low income Kansans. Critics view it as welfare using the tax code since these folks have no Kansas personal income tax liability. That welfare style tax break was raised a little over 13 percent in this bill.

I can only guess that the "...$570 billion in lost revenue..." must also include the unemployment tax reduction too. That would be the largest single item bulk of the "reduction." Based on the rest of the figures you cite, the EITC would then be the next largest, if the social security reduction has only a $5.4 million price tag in 2008.

Left wing spending advocates pulled this stunt back in the 1990's to try and magnify the size of the tax reductions during the 5 year unemployment tax moratorium from 1995-1999. Fortunately, unemployment taxes can't be shifted into the state's general fund budget. The mainstream Kansas press largely swallowed this as did [the reporter's] article, "...Gov. Bill Graves responded with record-setting tax breaks--an estimated $4 billion during Graves' eight-year administration."

Sorry: That's $500 million a year in annual tax cuts. Graves' first budget was FY 1994 and Gen. Fund spending was $3.111 billion. By FY 2002 Graves budget had grown to $4.466 billion or 43% increase (KS Fiscal Facts 2006, p. 23). How did these "cuts" reduce state revenues and spending? The single largest item in these calculations was the unemployment tax moratorium enacted in Graves first year as governor and excluded from the General Fund. Including this figure misleads your readers.

If you wanted to be more accurate you could point out that in nominal dollar terms Kansas had its first $3 billion General Fund Budget in 1994 and stands a good chance of enacting its first $6 billion General Fund budget for FY 2008 depending upon what the legislature does in their 2007 wrap up/veto session. That would be close to a 100% hike in nominal dollar terms.

Or you might point out that the state had its first All Funds budget exceeding $6 billion (including Medicaid and highway programs) in FY 1994 and has gone over $12 billion in the current fiscal year. Even adjusted for inflation, state spending is soaring in Kansas.

The Eagle hasn't reported that the Tax Foundation's latest ranking of state and local taxes as a percentage of income ranked us 15th highest among the 50 states earlier this month. That is where this state's economic problem lies. Not with your unsourced commentary, "...lawmakers...wonder whether it's a road map back to the budget crisis of the early 2000s, when tax cuts took effect just before a downturn in the economy and left the state scrambling to provide vital services."

I guess that is fine in editorial commentary but it should be forbidden in news stories. Or, perhaps you could find some legislator or other elected official to make this type of assertion.

Let me add, that despite [my organization] and my best efforts, a sizable portion of the property tax cuts enacted in 1997-98 at the state level never got to taxpayers. They were grabbed by local units who raised their property taxes to offset the state reductions. So, much of the "tax cuts" never got back to the folks who paid them.

This commentary should have appeared on the editorial page. The only useful point in this piece was Rep. Jim Ward's (D-Wichita) statement that "...We spent it..."

Recently two editorials appeared in The Wichita Eagle promoting government spending on the arts because it does wonderful things for the local economy. The writers are Rhonda Holman and Joan Cole, who is chairwoman of the Arts Council.

I read the study that these local writers relied on. The single greatest defect in this study is that it selectively ignores the secondary effects of government spending on the arts.

As an example, the writers in the Eagle promote the study's conclusion that the return on dollars spent on the arts is "a spectacular 7-to-1 that would even thrill Wall Street veterans." It hardly merits mention that there aren't legitimate investments that generate this type of return in any short timeframe.

So were do these fabulous returns come from? Here's a passage from the study that the Eagle writers relied on:

A theater company purchases a gallon of paint from the local hardware store for $20, generating the direct economic impact of the expenditure. The hardware store then uses a portion of the aforementioned $20 to pay the sales clerk’s salary; the sales clerk respends some of the money for groceries; the grocery store uses some of the money to pay its cashier; the cashier then spends some for the utility bill; and so on. The subsequent rounds of spending are the indirect economic impacts.

Thus, the initial expenditure by the theater company was followed by four additional rounds of spending (by the hardware store, sales clerk, grocery store, and the cashier). The effect of the theater company’s initial expenditure is the direct economic impact. The subsequent rounds of spending are all of the indirect impacts. The total impact is the sum of the direct and indirect impacts.

Relying on this reasoning illustrates the problem with the Eagle editorials: they ignore the secondary effects of economic action, except when it suits their case. The fabulous returns erroneously attributed to spending on the arts derive from this chain of spending starting at the hardware store. But what the authors of this study and the Eagle editorial writers must fail to see is that anyone who buys a gallon of paint for any reason sets off the same chain of economic activity. There is no difference -- except that a homeowner buying the paint is doing so voluntarily, while an arts organization using taxpayer-supplied money to buy the paint is using someone else's money.

The study also pumps up the return on government investment in the arts by noting all the other spending that arts patrons do on things like dinner before and desert after arts events. But if people kept their own money instead of being taxed to support the arts, they would spend this money on other things, and those things might include restaurant meals, too.

The fact that these editorials have been printed might lead me to suspect that government-supported arts organizations and Eagle editorial writers might feel a little guilty about using taxpayer funds. They should. To take money from one group of people by government coercion and give it to other people, especially when that purpose is to stage arts events, is wrong. It's even more so when the justification for doing this is so transparently incorrect.

Arts organizations need to survive on their own merits. They need to produce a product or service that satisfies their customers and patrons just as any other business must.

It may turn out that what people really want for arts and culture, as expressed by their own selections made freely, might be different from what government bureaucrats and commissions decide we should have. That freedom to choose, it seems to me, is something that our Wichita City Council, Arts Council, and Wichita Eagle editorial writers believe the public isn't informed or responsible enough to enjoy.

From Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

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State Senator Peggy Palmer, R-Augusta has publicly announced that she has canceled her Wichita Eagle subscription in the wake of the controversy over the Wichita Eagle's "news" coverage of today's election.

I have just received a second legislative email from another legislator who has told me that this legislator's Eagle subscription is now history too. I have asked this legislator by email whether or not they would like this to be added to the public record.

In addition, Democratic candidate for the Kansas House of Representatives in the 87th district in east Wichita Rajeev Goyle has posted on his web site that he is a former Wichita Eagle employee. This is surprising news that should have been included in the Wichita Eagle's news coverage of the legislative race. It is an outrage that this Eagle connection was not mentioned. Goyle's Eagle ties should have been mentioned in both the news as well as in the Eagle's editorial endorsement of Mr. Goyle.

Internet reports today indicate that Goyle was campaigning outside a voting location and confronted by a prominent GOP attorney there. That type of electioneering would certainly violate a number of election laws but he is a liberal so this trangression will probably get memory hole treatment.

What other salient facts about the candidates have not been reported? Here is another fact.

I have yet to hear any of the Wichita news media report about Phill Klines numerous endorsements by law enforcement professionals and organizations when these endorsements occurred......months ago.

It was unintentionally hilarious to hear KNSS try to report that one of the 89 sheriffs who had endorsed Kline was withdrawing his endorsement without mentioning the other 88 last week. That 88 included a majority of the Democratic Sheriffs in Kansas too.

If that would have been Morrison receiving 89 endorsements from law enforcement, that would have been front page, above the fold news. I can see the headlines, "Morrison endorsed by GOP sheriff's".

How many sheriffs endorsed Morrison? Is it a number greater than zero? I will never know by reading the Eagle.

A couple of weeks ago there was a national report about declining newspaper circulation. All but a few of the major newspapers including my personal favorite, the Wall Street Journal and their outstanding editorial page, reported circulation declines. The Wichita Eagle was too small to be listed in this story but a KC friend reported that the sister KS newspaper in the McClatchy chain, the KC Star, lost 5% and 4% respectively on their Sunday and daily editions in this latest report. That's similar to circulation declines at other left wing daily newspapers like the Washington Post and NY Times.

I received this message presenting more evidence of bias at The Wichita Eagle, this time in a story by reporter Deb Gruver. The boss referred to is Sherry Chisenhall, Editor.

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Deb,

I don't make a spin accusation lightly but I am sick and tired of the misleading bilge I am reading in the Eagle. I'm copying your boss to extend my complaint about spin to the management as well as the working reporter level at the Eagle. A point in your "Pinch" article rose to the top of the heap this morning and I am steamed about it.

Your article describes, "... the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan nonprofit group..."

Bunk. That's left wing SPIN.

The Center for American Progress is a left wing think tank.....or you could also describe it as a liberal think tank. Conversely here's how the Eagle describes the "...conservative Heritage Foundation..." or "...the libertarian CATO Institute" if you mentioned these nonpartisan nonprofits in your news article. CATO and Heritage are equally "non partisan" although I cannot recall ever seeing "nonpartisan" or "nonprofit" used in describing either organization in the Eagle. It applies as much to them as it would Soros' new think tank.

The Center For American Progress is one of the new, George Soros funded left wing think tanks and a cursory examination of their web site shows it being headed by former Clinton staffer John Podesta, includes a "Distinguished Senior Fellow," Tom Daschle as well as being filled with a variety of liberal and leftist activists.

If you want to quote them: fine. Emphasizing the "non partisan" nature while not doing the same for non leftist think tanks is SPIN. Stop it.

It makes many of your knowledgeable readers mad.

As reported in the Lawrence Journal-World on September 27, 2006, personal income in Kansas grew at the rate of 1.4 percent for the second quarter of 2006. That sounds pretty good, and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius uses facts like this in her campaign ads.

But our growth can be understood only when placed in context. Here's what the Journal-World said:

Kansans are putting more money in their pockets, but the extra income isn’t keeping up with increases for residents in other states.

Personal income rose by 1.4 percent in Kansas during the second quarter, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That rate of growth was surpassed by all but nine other states.

(As has been mentioned, most of the growth in jobs in Kansas has been in government.)

The governor must be hoping that voters get their information only from her campaign ads, and that they don't take a moment to read an entire news story. Even if they do read a newspaper, it might not help much. I can't find mention of this news in our state's largest newspaper, The Wichita Eagle.

Would Republican challenger Jim Barnett do much better leading Kansas? Although he earned a legislative vote rating of 100% from the Kansas Taxpayers Network this year, his voting in 2006 was very different from his past behavior. Before this year, Sen. Barnett had a lifetime ranking of only 28%. I would imagine that had Kathleen Sebelius been in the senate these same years, her rating would be similar. You do the math.

I received this commentary from a person who believes he noticed some bias in reporting appearing in The Wichita Eagle.

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... I visited with Eagle writer Dion Lefler regarding the language he used to describe the Sedgwick County Commission meeting the day after Sedgwick County Commissioners voted 5 to 0 to raise the mil levy. I told him politely that I had a "bone to pick" with him regarding the semantics he used in that article when he referred to our group as the "anti-tax group". I said to him, "Whenever you use the word to describe any group as "anti" you automatically send a negative message to your readers that actually shows your personal "bias" against that particular group." I pointed out that we are not "anti" anything, but on the contrary we are taxpayer advocates and perhaps should be referred to as the "pro-taxpayer group" or the "taxpayer advocate group".

I asked him why he did not refer to our opponents at the hearing as the "anti-taxpayer group". If he had done that in his article, perhaps he could have achieved the "balance" that newspapers try to achieve. He could then rightly refer to our lower tax and less government taxpayer advocate group as the "antitaxers" and our opponents, the more government and higher tax advocate group, as the "antitaxpayers."

I pointed out to Dion that our opponents who spoke at the hearing were primarily two groups. One group represented primarily government staff people who wanted their particular program funded and their well-scripted clientele who spoke of their need and dependence on government programs to help them with their alcohol, depression, drug, mental, or senior problems. The other group wanting additional taxpayer money were six figure executives from the aircraft industry dressed in their suits and ties begging for additional largess from the public treasury ("corporate welfare") for an industry that already receives massive taxpayer subsidies. Our group, the "taxpayer advocate group" was speaking for thousands of property taxpaying people ("widows and orphans included") who were not present and who were not represented particularly by the people that they elected to represent them.

Dion admitted that he saw my point and that he would take it into consideration in future reporting. I hope he was serious and follows through. I believe AFP, KTN, and other taxpayer advocacy groups need to take the lead in insisting on positive and balanced reporting rather than the biased and slanted work that we have unfortunately learned to tolerate as normal.

A Wichita Eagle article published on June 29, 2006 explores the need for a new terminal at the Wichita Airport. I have some issues with the reporting in this article, as it is quite biased in favor of those advocating the new terminal. When you combine people eager to spend others' money with sloppy newspaper reporting we have a situation where reason -- not to mention sanity -- is not likely to prevail.

An example of the sloppy reporting is when it is noted that the existing terminal was dedicated in 1954, and the director of airports is quoted as saying the terminal "is functionally obsolete." Never mind that the terminal has been expanded greatly and reworked and remodeled several times since then. Now I can understand the director of airports wanting a shiny new terminal to work in, perhaps even to be named for him after he retires. Neither is a good reason for building it, however.

Advocates for a new terminal say we need one because the present terminal "Doesn't have space for adequate security." If this defect is actually present, I recommend we close the airport immediately! We can't have an airport without adequate security. I hope no one from out of town -- certainly no terrorists, at least -- is reading this article.

In the article, a photograph was captioned "Fliers must wait in line at the ticketing counter, then in another line at the checkpoint. A larger terminal, officials say, would lessen crowding." I might ask, is there any airport where there are not separate lines for ticketing and security? Or are there plans for airports to be built that integrate check in and security? I realize that newspaper reporters are merely quoting someone, but to print a statement like this implies that a new terminal will somehow fix this problem.

Also, many people today check in at home or office through the airlines' websites, and therefore are able to bypass the ticket counter entirely if they don't have checked baggage.

Another photograph was captioned "The baggage claim area can get crowded very quickly, airport officials say, and there is no space available in the existing terminal to expand it." I might remark that the baggage claim area is crowded not with travelers, but with the people who came to greet them. This is also a problem at the Wichita airport as arriving passengers depart the secure area. The throng of greeters makes it difficult to get by, sometimes. But a little remodeling might fix this.

Also, advocates say the present airport "Doesn't give visitors a good first impression of the city." I guess whether this is true or not depends on one's viewpoint. When I travel, I appreciate facilities that look like they were built economically and are operated efficiently, as I know it is I, the traveler and taxpayer, who pays for these things.

Advocates claim that no local tax money will be spent to build a new terminal. They may be correct. But someone has to pay for it, be it the federal taxpayer or Wichita Airport user, and there is bound to be much local tax money spent on infrastructure improvements surrounding a new terminal. If airline tickets were itemized like hotel bills and rental car bills, showing the various taxes and charges that fliers pay, we would be more aware of who will pay, and how they will pay, for a new terminal.

We should also remember that travelers to our city pay a lot of tax. As I travel, I am very aware of the huge taxes I pay when I use hotels and rental cars. As an example, a recent hotel bill in Pennsylvania with a room rate of $109 swelled to $124 with taxes. A car rental bill there for $409 really cost $532 after taxes, fees, and other charges imposed by local governments, taxing authorities, and airports. Many local governments, ours included, use these taxes to painlessly raise revenue, they say, as locals rarely pay them. But visitors do pay them, and they leave a bitter impression about the local governments that levy them.

Writing from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In a June 20, 2006 Wichita Eagle editorial, Rhonda Holman writes about the WaterWalk project in Wichita.

Evidently there is controversy over the public not knowing the name of the "destination restaurant" that is being courted and favored with a gift of $1 million. To me, the controversy is not the identify of the restaurant or when and how the city should conduct its negotiations, but that we are paying for a restaurant to be built.

We are not lacking for fine restaurants in Wichita. On both the east and west sides of town (and other parts, too), many excellent restaurants have been opened recently, and more are being built as I write. The Eagle has even reported on their astonishment at how many there are.

The problem is, I believe, that these restaurants were not built where Ms. Holman and our local government leaders feel they should have been built. But that's not a problem, except to her and them.

The people who built these restaurants did so by investing their own money, or the money that others entrusted to them. These people did so voluntarily. They presumably built their restaurants where they thought they could earn the best return on their investment. And having invested several million dollars of their own money in the restaurant, they have a strong incentive to make the restaurant a success.

But that's not good enough for Ms. Holman. Evidently she does not appreciate the sacrifice that people have made in order to accumulate the funds needed to make these spectacular investments. She may not be aware of -- or maybe she does not respect or value -- the tremendous effort and work it takes to run a successful restaurant.

Just because these people did not build their restaurants where she (and our local government leaders) thought they should have been built, she wants to tax them -- and the rest of us, too -- and give the proceeds of that tax to a new competitor.

Is this the type of behavior by our local government and our town's leading newspaper that is likely to lead to other new private investment?

Ms. Holman's editorial stance, along with the actions of our local government leaders, constitute a slap in the fact for those who have been foolish enough (we can now conclude this) to invest money in any industry in which the government is likely to set up their competitor.

This harmful attitude is summarized in this plea to get the WaterWalk project moving faster, "... so that citizens not only can see where their money is going but also soon start enjoying more of their investment."

Making an investment, I might remind Ms. Holman, is something that people do voluntarily because they believe it is in their interest.

The WaterWalk project and the new downtown restaurant are being paid for by taxes. The expenditure is being made to serve the interests of politicians, subsidized developers, and people like Ms. Holman who believe they know best what to do with others' money. There is a tremendous difference between the two.

In June, 2005, the editors of The Wichita Eagle started a blog, the Wichita Eagle Editorial blog, or WE Blog.

The way this blog works it that one of the Eagle editors starts a topic, and then the public can add comments.

A small group of the posters who make these comments seem to know each others' reputations well, and postings from this group account for nearly all the content of the blog. They have had, by my count, two social gatherings. From posts filed by the attendees, they seemed like enjoyable affairs. I was surprised to read these pleasant accounts, as on the blog, people are usually quite mean and nasty.

It usually doesn't take very long before the posts on many topics disintegrate into name-calling, sometimes using the foulest language imaginable, language that The Eagle won't print in the newspaper. In fact, even the editors won't use this language themselves on the blog, although from time to time they may use these words in sanitized form.

Often when someone who has a history of posting -- and therefore a reputation -- posts an opinion or makes an argument, someone will point that the poster is a Democrat or a Republican, or is liberal or conservative, and therefore the opinion or argument is to be discounted. This is a common form of argument. Or someone will point out that the poster said something stupid in the past, so this is stupid, too.

Often posters use terms of art such as "BushBots," "BushCo," "Repukes," and "Wingnuts" when referring to others. Conservative posters have similar terms they use, too. These terms are used as insults or to advance an argument or opinion.

Commonly, when someone presses a point a follow-up post makes the demand "show me a link." Dutifully the original poster finds a link that supports their argument, and almost always it will be derided as coming from a source that is not valid or trustworthy because it is liberal, conservative, or has some other defect in the eyes of the poster. Sometimes entire articles are posted, almost certainly in violation of the copyright.

It is my sense that many of the topics started by the editors are calculated to allow those with left-leaning sensibilities the opportunity to launch attacks on conservatives and right-leaning posters. It does seem to me that the majority of the regulars on the blog are near the left of the political spectrum.

The left, too, seems to get the best of the conservatives much of the time. But that's not surprising. Government, at all levels, is too big and powerful and tries to do too many things. As government overreaches, it inevitably makes mistakes, and therefore is an easy target for criticism. If the left wins political power over the next few years, it too will be on the defensive for all the misguided things that it tries to do.

When a person posts to the blog, they enter a name -- real or otherwise -- and an email address, again real or not. There is no security of any type, and it is therefore possible for one person to make a post using the identity of some other poster. There is no way for readers of the blog to detect that this has happened, except from an analysis of the content of the message. A few posters claim this happens regularly to them.

This lack of accountability as to the origin of the post is a problem. One's identity is not safe, as others can post in your name. Other discussion forum systems often require some form of registration, tracing an identity back to an email address, usually, and then requiring login with a password before posting. With this, readers can be sure that something posted under a name did, in fact, come from that person.

The discussions also die prematurely in some cases. Not that the topics disappear, but after a few weeks they move to an archive section, where they can still be read and posted to, but it seems like few topics survive this archiving. So some discussions that have merit in continuation stop.

There is also the problem that the only issues that are discussed are ones that the editors decide to start a topic on, although topics can drift to any subject, and there are "open threads" that are started occasionally. Most discussion forum systems, though, have threaded topics and allow users to start topics on their own. Threaded topics would allow new threads of discussion to be split off as the flow of discussion changes. These systems also allow replies to be associated with a specific post, so that readers can easily read a reply in the context of the post that inspired it. That isn't present with the current system the Wichita Eagle Editorial Blog uses.

A curious fact is that The Eagle has discussion boards that have many of the features that make discussion forums work better. These boards are not as popular as the blog, and seem to have their own small group of regular posters.

I do not recommend spending time reading the Wichita Eagle Editorial Blog. The mean-spirited nastiness of the bulk of the posts far outweighs the few redeeming things you might learn. The group of regular posters is so partisan, the discourse so bitter and shrill, so full of cruel sarcasm, that readers are likely to come away angry and disillusioned. In fact, a topic started today by Phillip Brownlee titled "Hard to shake faith of the faithful" points out how a person's perspective colors their judgment of events, and how each party believes they are right, no matter what the facts and evidence show. There's lots of evidence of this type of behavior on this blog. Still, I must confess that sometimes, like when passing a car wreck, I can't resist taking a peek.

My preference is to reduce the power of government to the point that there is little that government does that is important enough to argue over.

Dear Bob's Blog, I recently moved to wichita from chicago... a while b4 i decided to move I had completed my Comcast public access certification. Comcast is basicaly the equivalence to Cox here. Un / Fortunately I was unable to put it to any good use while in Chicago due to some circumstances.... however I was searchin around the web and came across your blog entry on the lack of public acess for the public here in wichita. I wondered if you had any luck with your letter and/or knew any sources of information on the subject. I would be willing to put forth some effort in helping our voice be heard...

More Under Reported Kansas News
By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network

There are at least two stories that have not received the mainstream news media attention that they deserve in Kansas. Kansans need more information than they have received and the readers should decide whether the following is unreported or just under reported in their daily, mainstream newspaper coverage.

It was headlines across Kansas when Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison announced his candidacy for Attorney General. Morrison, a liberal Johnson County Republican prior to his announcement, bailed out of the GOP said he was going to run as a Democrat. This announcement and the headline news stories that followed led to analysis pieces discussing the split in the Kansas Republican Party and the “problems” facing Attorney General Phill Kline’s 2006 campaign for reelection.

What is fascinating in seeing the mainstream Kansas press’ bias was a couple of weeks later when Attorney General Kline announced that 89 of 105 county sheriffs were endorsing him for reelection. Even more remarkable was the fact that 8 of 13 Democrat sheriffs were among the 89.

In an editorial in the September 18, 2005 Wichita Eagle, Randy Scholfield wrote "Less government is a laudable goal."

The dictionary defines laudable as "Deserving commendation; praiseworthy" or "Deserving honor, respect, or admiration." Mr. Scholfield's past writings don't treat the goal of less government this way. In fact, it doesn't seem there is a single government program that Mr. Scholfield doesn't like and praise.

On September 13, 2004, he advocated more funding for early childhood education, writing "... the state Legislature needs to do the right thing for the state's children and future, and invest in early childhood education."

He seems to automatically believe that schools need more money.

He believes in government subsidies. In an editorial in The Wichita Eagle published on April 19, 2005, he wrote: "Wichita should stick to its subsidies. They're fostering competition, not stifling it, and paying off big-time for the community by lowering airfares and boosting economic development."

He has consistently supported the government building the downtown Wichita arena.

He advocates more government spending on arts (August 9, 2005 "Culture requires community support").

He supports more funding for Exploration Place.

Mr. Scholfield, is there any government program you have opposed, any example that would lend credibility to your claim that less government is a laudable goal?

Thank you to Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network for this fine article that explains the problems that Kansas should be aware of in the Kansas Supreme Court. Readers of this website may remember that I joined Karl in filing ethics complaints against Justices Allegrucci and Nuss (The Ethics Case Against Justice Donald L. Allegrucci, The Ethics Case Against Justice Lawton R. Nuss). I thought the case we made against Justice Allegrucci was compelling, but the Commission on Judicial Qualifications didn't think so (The Wrong Canon; The Wrong Allegrucci). But someone did, as his wife -- the link to Governor Kathleen Sebelius that was the source of the ethics problem -- resigned her position. Readers might be asking where is the coverage in Kansas news media of these cases.

Judicial Abuse Authorized in Kansas
By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network

A closed door meeting in early September in Topeka provided the excuse to expand judicial abuse at the highest level of Kansas government. The Commission on Judicial Qualifications met to consider the complaint that Kansas Supreme Court Justice Lawton Nuss should not participate in the school finance lawsuit. This commission decided that Justice Nuss did not need to recuse himself from ruling on this billion dollar lawsuit.

Prior to joining the Kansas Supreme Court in 2002, Nuss had been an attorney representing the lead school district plaintiff that is participating in this lawsuit. The Salina public schools had joined with Dodge City public schools in filing and financing this lawsuit back in the 1990's and Nuss was one of Salina's lawyers at that time. Nuss should have recused himself from this case since he had represented one of the plaintiffs when this case arrived in front of the court.

Three years ago when Nuss joined the Kansas Supreme Court he was expected to obey the ethics rules that supposedly exist for the members of Kansas courts. The judicial canon includes provisions that judges are supposed to avoid all appearances of impropriety. These rules in part say, "A judge shall not allow family, social, political, or other relationships to influence the judge's judicial conduct or judgment. A judge shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others; nor shall the judge convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge."

Would you like to go in front a judge who used to represent the person who is suing you? No one would want to do so. This is basic legal ethics. However, you are now a target of an aggressive tax funded plaintiff that is suing you indirectly as a taxpayer. Millions of tax dollars have been spent to finance this school finance litigation in Kansas. The school districts are now suing to transfer $1 billion from the private sector to the public school districts every year. This year they received $290 million more than last year. Next year is likely to be even more costly to Kansas taxpayers.

This appointed commission has now decided that it is perfectly appropriate for Justice Nuss to rule that hundreds of millions of additional tax dollars must be spent for one of the clients he use to represent according to this judicial commission. Well, who appointed this commission of judges, ex-judges, lawyers, and mainly members of the news media? The Kansas Supreme Court appointed them to their four year terms.

So who will oversee the appointed members of this court? The answer is that the Kansas Supreme Court is untouched by ethics rules for the rest of the legal profession. Nuss' case follows the recent dismissal of similar ethics complaints by this commission. The second complaint concerned Justice Donald Allegrucci, whose wife was until recently the chief of staff as well as the 2002 campaign manager for Governor Sebelius. Governor Sebelius has been supporting the school district's position that state spending must be dramatically raised.

An oxymoron is a word that describes a phrase that combines contradictory elements like, "thunderous silence." The Kansas Supreme Court now orders legislators on what is appropriate as well as what amount should be in the appropriation, issues edicts that could shut down the schools, and capriciously re-writes Kansas law. The term, "judicial ethics," for the highest court in this state is now an oxymoron. Kansans need to know that the appointed judicial elite is now untouchable by their own ethics rules. The fiscal abuse of Kansans by this state's highest and, arguably, most activist state court in the entire country continues. Every Kansas taxpayer will have to pay this court's huge bill.

Thank you, Karl, for this insight into the character of our leading Kansas politicians, and for another example of how Kansas newspapers and other news media aren't giving us the information we need.

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Untold and Under Reported Stories From the Kansas Special Session: Part II

By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network

Early in the special session of the Kansas legislature the house speaker, Representative Doug Mays, R-Topeka, spoke one-on-one with Governor Sebelius. Following this conversation Rep. Mays relayed his discussion with the governor to his house GOP caucus as he laid out a variety of public policy options for the special session. This event deserves more public attention than it has received.

Speaker Mays said that he and Governor Sebelius did not find a lot of common ground. Mays did say that the governor was willing to do a deal. The governor wanted expanded gambling while the conservative GOP legislators behind Mays wanted a constitutional amendment to defend the budgetary authority of elected officials from the Kansas courts.

The two constitutional amendments both ended in failure on the house floor with 41 of 42 house Democrats voting against both proposals to limit the Kansas Supreme Court's spending edict. A 2/3 vote or 84 out of 125 house members would be needed to send a constitutional amendment to Kansas voters after two separate amendments passed the senate. Unified house Democrats have the votes to stop any constitutional amendment.

In May 2005, Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director of the Kansas Taxpayers Network, wrote an editorial that explained how Kansas Supreme Court Justice Donald L. Allegrucci needed to recuse himself from matters involving the Kansas school finance lawsuit. That's because his wife, Joyce Allegrucci, is Governor Kathleen Sebelius's chief of staff, and the governor has taken a public position on the case.

After reading Peterjohn's editorial, I decided that more action was necessary. I found out that the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications might be a forum that could deal with ethical lapses like Justice Allegrucci's. I filed a complaint against Justice Allegrucci, and so did Peterjohn. You can read the details of my case in the article "The Ethics Case Against Justice Donald L. Allegrucci" published on The Voice for Liberty in Wichita at http://wichitaliberty.org/node/121. The basis of the case is the Kansas Rules Relating to Judicial Conduct, Canon 2, paragraph B, which states: "A judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge's judicial conduct or judgment." Furthermore, in the commentary to Canon 2, paragraph A: "A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. The test for appearance of impropriety is whether the conduct would create in reasonable minds a perception that the judge's ability to carry out judicial responsibilities with integrity, impartiality and competence is impaired."

I thought that a judge ruling on a matter of importance to his wife's boss qualified as the appearance of impropriety, if not actual impropriety.

My complaint was considered on July 1, 2005. In a letter dated July 12, 2005, the commission informed me that based on Canon 3E(1)(d)(iii), there was no case. This is curious, as I did not cite this canon. It says:

E. Disqualification.
(1) A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances where:

(d) the judge or the judge's spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person:

(iii) is known by the judge to have a more than de minimis interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding;

"De minimis" denotes an insignificant interest that could not raise reasonable question as to a judge's impartiality.

I do not know whether the commission did any fact-finding, but evidently they concluded that Joyce Allegrucci, who is the governor's top employee and who has managed all her political campaigns, doesn't care very much about the outcome of a case that the governor cares very much about. This is not reasonable. It is laughable.

There is still the issue of the Canon 2 appearance of impropriety, which was not addressed by the commission. I think that Joyce Allegrucci's resignation speaks volumes about that. I'm sorry that she resigned. I didn't file a complaint against her. To my knowledge, she has committed no infraction. It is her husband, Justice Allegrucci, who had the responsibility to disqualify himself.

(By the way, I happen to disagree with the court's ruling, but that is beside the point. The point is that we don't know whether Justice Allegrucci's rulings are affected by his family relationship. It may be that the Allegruccis are not getting along very well, and the judge might rule to spite his wife. Or, perhaps he is capable of making a ruling without letting the family relationship influence his judgment. But we don't know, and we probably can't ever know. That is why this is the appearance of impropriety.)

I believe that press coverage of this matter is missing this point. Politicians are missing it, too. Consider this, as reported by The Wichita Eagle: "'There's no conflict of interest, absolutely none,' said Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood. 'Many people don't understand what conflict of interest is. They perceive it as any situation they don't like.' He said Allegrucci wasn't involved in the school finance discussions between legislative leaders and the governor's office during the special session."

Sen. Vratil seems to think that we accused Joyce Allegrucci of committing an ethical violation. Instead, we accused her husband, Justice Donald L. Allegrucci, as it is he who violated the Kansas Rules Relating to Judicial Conduct.

Further in the same article: "Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, called Allegrucci's departure a loss of a 'talented staff member,' but noted the governor won't have to deal with the criticism of her staff being too close to the court in an [sic] re-election year."

Sen. Schmidt treats this matter as merely "inside politics." It is true that people probably won't remember this matter by the time of next year's elections. Again, I don't believe that Governor Sebelius or Joyce Allegrucci committed any ethical violations. It is Justice Allegrucci who should have recognized the impropriety of the situation and disqualified himself.

In summary, we have a Kansas Supreme Court Justice who has committed an ethical violation. The Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications didn't agree, and didn't consider an applicable canon when making its ruling. The press and some Kansas politicians fail to understand the importance of this matter. Instead of our state using this situation as an opportunity to reinforce the importance of ethics through a careful review and discussion of "impropriety" and the "appearance of impropriety," the wrong person has resigned and the issue appears to have been resolved. A scapegoat isn't what Kansas needs to increase confidence in our government. We need a press that sees the issue as vital and a group of representatives that realize confidence is their ticket not only to reelection, but to respect.

Writing from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

I recently had an issue with an article published in The Wichita Eagle, and my encounter with this newspaper was quite revealing.

In a story titled "Schools get shopping lists ready" in the June 20, 2005 Wichita Eagle, reporter Josh Funk wrote this: "Research shows that having 15 students per class gives teachers time to offer individual help and fosters academic success, especially among low-income kids, said Mary Ellen Isaac, the district's chief academic officer." I believe that the quoted person is misinformed, but aside from that, this is reporting. Someone said it, the reporter quoted the source, and also identified the source.

What I have trouble with is the second sentence of the article, where Mr. Funk wrote, in a single paragraph all by itself: "Proven reforms, such as reducing the number of kids in a classroom, top the list of things Wichita area school districts plan to invest in."

This statement is presented as an indisputable fact, when there are many distinguished researchers who would disagree with it. I don't think that anyone Mr. Funk quoted in this article would disagree with it, and that, perhaps, is the biggest problem with this story: its unbalanced coverage of this topic.

There is definitely no consensus that small class sizes produce better educational outcomes. You don't have to look very far to find reputable evidence of this. For example, consider research by Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University. His paper "Evidence, politics, and the class size debate" is available at this link: http://edpro.stanford.edu/eah/papers/EPI.class%20size.publication.pdf. This article provides reasoned criticism of the Tennessee STAR experiment, which may be the evidence that Mr. Funk relied upon for his story. (We don't know the source of Mr. Funk's evidence, of course, as he doesn't tell us, but that experiment is evidence often relied on by the educational establishment.)

Or, consider Harvard economist Caroline M. Hoxby's research titled "The effects of class size on student achievement: New evidence from population variation", The Quarterly Journal of Economics 115:4 (2000), 1239-1285, which can be read here: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/effects.pdf. The conclusion to this paper states, in part: "Using both methods, I find that reductions in class size have no effect on student achievement. The estimates are sufficiently precise that, if a 10 percent reduction in class size improved achievement by just 2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation, I would have found statistically significant effects in math, reading, and writing. I find no evidence that class size reductions are more efficacious in schools that contain high concentrations of low income students or African-American students."

Failing to mention, even in passing, that spending huge sums to reduce class size may provide little or no benefit to schoolchildren makes this news article read like a press release authored by Winston Brooks, the superintendent of the Wichita public schools.

I attempted to contact Mr. Funk about this article, as I wanted to learn the source of his statement about class size. I emailed twice and left voicemail messages twice. Finally, after the third email, Mr. Funk called me. He listened to what I had to say about the problems with the article, but he disagreed. I did not learn the source of the claim made in the second sentence of the article.

What is revealing about this encounter is that the last email I sent to Mr. Funk was also sent to a Mr. Kevin McGrath, whom I thought might be Mr. Funk's editor. (I hate to complain to someone's boss, but I was getting no response from Mr. Funk.)

Mr. McGrath forwarded my email, along with a few remarks of his own, to Mr. Funk, but he also, I presume by accident, sent it to me.

The most revealing part of Mr. McGrath's letter that I inadvertently received is how he implied that my criticism of Mr. Funk's article would be based on my belief that he is a "no-good liberal elitist so-and-so." I do not know Mr. Funk, and I know nothing about his political beliefs or elitist background, if in fact that is the type of personal history he has. Furthermore, if my criticism of Mr. Funk's article was based on his personal characteristics or political beliefs, it wouldn't be very compelling or valid criticism.

My criticism, instead, is based on defects in his reporting and the editing of the newspaper he works for.

It is also enlightening to note that The Eagle brushes off criticism of their reporting and editing by discounting the beliefs of their critics. As long as they believe this about their readers and critics, we will never have a newspaper that gives the public the information they really need.

I have filed an ethics complaint against Kansas Supreme Court Justice Donald L. Allegrucci. This complaint is on the agenda of the July 1, 2005 meeting of the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications.

I happen to disagree with the ruling the Kansas Supreme Court made in the case cited in my complaint. I have been asked whether I would have filed the same complaint if I had agreed with the court's ruling. The answer to that question is probably not. My level of interest would probably not be what it is. That troubles me, as we as citizens need to be watchful for these types of judicial transgressions, no matter what our political beliefs are, and not mattering whether we or the causes that we support benefit from the judge's rulings.

I have yet to see much newspaper reporting on this. The Associated Press wrote a story based on Karl Peterjohn's column, and the Wichita Eagle and Topeka Capital-Journal printed it, although in Wichita it was pretty far back in the paper's pages.

The form I filed with the Commission asks for a twenty-five word statement of what the judge did that was unethical. This is what I wrote:

Justice Allegrucci is married to the Governor's Chief of Staff. The Governor has taken a position on a case before Justice Allegrucci's court.

For the details of the complaint, I wrote this:

In the case Montoy v. State, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has taken a position. In an article titled "School finance plan delivered to state Supreme Court" published in the Lawrence Journal-World on April 7, 2005, she is quoted as stating "As governor, I believe the Legislature's school funding plan is neither responsible nor sustainable. It jeopardizes the state's finances, as well as jobs and economic growth throughout Kansas." The legislature's school funding plan is now before the court Justice Allegrucci serves on.

Justice Allegrucci is married to Joyce Allegrucci, who serves as the Governor's Chief of Staff.

In the Kansas Rules Relating to Judicial Conduct, Canon 2, paragraph B states: A judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge's judicial conduct or judgment.

Through marriage, Justice Allegrucci has a family relationship to Joyce Allegrucci. Through employment and political considerations, Joyce Allegrucci has a relationship to Governor Sebelius.

Canon 2, paragraph A states: A judge shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.

In the commentary: A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. The test for appearance of impropriety is whether the conduct would create in reasonable minds a perception that the judge's ability to carry out judicial responsibilities with integrity, impartiality and competence is impaired.

Because of the family relationship to an important member of the Governor's staff, we can never be sure whether Justice Allegrucci's rulings are affected by this relationship. This is appearance of impropriety, if not actual impropriety.

Kansas Senator Kay O'Connor, Republican from Olathe, has been in the news recently.

It has been reported that Sen. O'Connor opposes the right of women to vote. In the June 12, 2005 Wichita Eagle a letter writer repeated this assertion. On June 2, 2005, the Eagle printed an Associated Press piece by John Hanna that detailed the remarks. On June 3, 2005, the Eagle editorialized about this, opposing Sen. O'Connor.

The facts, though, are different. Sen. O'Connor denies making the remarks. The Kansas City Star, the newspaper that first reported the story, would not print her letter telling her side. Neither would that newspaper print the letters of witnesses to Sen. O'Connor's remarks, witnesses who say she did not say what she is reported to have said.

I have met Sen. O'Connor. I admire her for her work on school choice in Kansas. She also voted against the bill allowing Sedgwick County to raise the sales tax for the downtown arena. I can understand, then, the Wichita Eagle not liking Sen. O'Connor and editorializing against her candidacy for Secretary of State, as Sen. O'Connor is a conservative, and the Eagle's editorial board seems quite liberal and in favor of big government. I would ask the editorial writers, though, to investigate these alleged remarks before citing them again. The Eagle is a newspaper, after all, and it should do some reporting of its own.

Following is a piece that details the Sen. O'Connor matter, and tells us more about the news media in Kansas.

This is a letter I am sending to Cox Communications, plus government officials who I think can help.

Recently I was in Portland, Ore. I happened to notice that there was true public access cable television. I watched several talk shows covering a variety of topics. There were locally-produced music shows, featuring local bands.

This experience caused me to wonder why Wichita doesn’t have this type of community cable television access. I seem to remember that when cable television was new, that local governments were granted public access channels as part of the franchise agreement. In Wichita we have a few channels that are used by the City of Wichita and the local school district. It seems to me, however, that these entities use the channels for very little useful programming. Most of the time these channels are rolling the same stale and useless public service announcements, or the same photographs of downtown Wichita statuary for the past few years.

Mr. Van Williams, Wichita Eagle city hall reporter for the past three years, will become Wichita's public information coordinator.

I believe there needs to be a tension between the press and the government officials it covers. The press needs to hold officials accountable. It needs to dig deep to uncover facts officials don't voluntarily concede. It needs to ask them tough questions. It needs to make them angry from time to time.

Would the City of Wichita hire someone who had been doing that?

Knightfall: Knight Ridder and How the Erosion of Newspaper Journalism Is Putting Democracy At Risk

Davis Merritt
Amacom Books, 2005

The theme of this book, written by a former editor of The Wichita Eagle is that over the past few decades, the business of making newspapers has changed from a business unlike any other to a business just like all others, and we are not well served by this change.

I think the most important quote from the book is this:

With a handful of exceptions, American newspapers are being eroded, their traditional values subverted, their journalistic resources stripped away, their dedication to public service and local communities hallowed out, leaving a thin shell of public relations gimmicks that pretend to be public service and entertainment that pretends to be news.

Newspapers are important. They provide the common set of information that we, as a democracy, can use to work through the issues that face us. Although most people now get news from television and Internet sources, the basis for much of this news content is newspapers.

How is newspaper journalism different from journalism that happens to be in a newspaper? The answer is that newspaper journalism is "not shaped by a limiting technology," such as a television broadcast; it values completeness over immediacy, it is lengthier and deeper than other sources of journalism, its goal is relevance rather than entertainment, and opinion and analysis is presented separately from news.

What has changed?

External changes have worked against newspapers. The baby boomer generation has not read newspapers with the same frequency as their parents. The fact that most newspapers are now publicly owned means that Wall Street pushes for ever-increasing profits. Newspapers, Mr. Merritt says, are a long-term investment and don't fare well in today's short-term investment climate. Technology changes, including the Internet, have been difficult for newspapers to adapt to.

Internal changes have occurred, too. The "creeping corporatism" of the national chains such as Knight Ridder has distanced newspapers from their local communities. The rise of Management By Objective (MBO) in the newsroom has caused editors to make journalistically unwise decisions. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the wall that has separated the journalism side from the business side of the newspaper business has all but crumbled.

Is there a solution on the horizon that will bring back the great tradition of newspaper journalism across America? Mr. Merritt presents several possible solutions, but I have the sense that he doesn't place much hope that any will succeed in the near future.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand newspapers and their important role in our country.

Reading this book has helped me understand why our local newspaper is the way it is, which is to say I understand why it so poorly serves our community. It also reinforces my belief that I should spend less time watching television news and spend more time reading the important newspapers of our country: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Christian Science Monitor. All these newspapers place their content on the Internet through their web sites. The Wall Street Journal costs $6.95 monthly, but the other newspapers are free to read, although you may have to register.

Links to material about this book: Publisher's page with excerpt, excerpt at Poynter, excerpt at Authorviews.com.

Last time I wrote a letter to the Wichita Eagle for publication, I said that I learned my lesson, which was that I needed to be brief. I didn’t learn this lesson well.

This Sunday The Eagle printed a letter I submitted, and a large section in the middle was omitted. This omitted material was the entire basis of my argument. As before, here is what I submitted, and what The Eagle printed.

In an editorial in The Wichita Eagle published on April 19, 2005, Randy Scholfield writes: "Wichita should stick to its subsidies. They're fostering competition, not stifling it, and paying off big-time for the community by lowering airfares and boosting economic development."

Competition, if it is to be meaningful, needs to be fair. It is not fair when one participant has a huge head start in the form of a government subsidy. The Eagle recognizes this when it suits their purpose. When endorsing Sam Brownback for reelection, this newspaper said "He includes in the former his stepped-up fight against the European subsidies of Airbus that have put Boeing and its workers in Wichita at competitive disadvantage."

Competition occurs when independent decision-makers, looking at the array of choices available to them, freely make their own decisions. With the AirTran subsidy, we have the City of Wichita (and now apparently Sedgwick County), by using their power to tax, making a decision for us in favor of AirTran. This is not competition.

Mr. Scholfield, the one subsidy I might support is one that would provide an alternative to the Wichita Eagle! Would you consider that to foster competition in the market for daily newspapers in Wichita?

"Wichita's been an east/west town for as long as I can remember. Obviously, we're trying to change that," says Tom Johnson, president of the upcoming downtown project, WaterWalk. (Wichita Business Journal, March 4, 2005)

A healthy community needs a healthy downtown. ... In Downtown, public investment has a proven track record of generating new, private investment. Since 1990, the government's investment of $165 million has stimulated $248 million in private investment. (Voteyea.com website.)

"Anything downtown seems to be off-limits for criticism or analysis. I don't know why it is," Lambke said. (Council member Phil Lambke, Wichita Eagle, November 14, 2004)

If you listen to local Wichita news media, our local politicians, and various community advocates, the desirability of downtown development over other development is accepted as a given. But what people actually do with their own money is different.

Free markets, since they represent people voluntarily entering into transactions that they believe will benefit them, lead to the most equitable and efficient allocation of scarce resources. When left to their own free will, most people and businesses in Wichita have decided to purchase property somewhere other than downtown. I don't know why people have made this choice, and that's really not important to me. What is important to me is that people and businesses make the choice of where to invest voluntarily. By investing in parts of town other than downtown, they are assigning a higher value to non-downtown property. As far as I know, no one is forcing this decision. People and businesses make it of their own free will.

As it happens, some people don't agree with the choices that most people and businesses have made. They believe that people and businesses should have purchased property downtown. They are, in effect, telling us that we have made a poor decision. They propose, and are in the process of doing just this, to trump the decisions of individuals and businesses with their own. They do this through the political process and the tax system. They take tax money and give it to businesses to induce them to locate downtown.

Why don't businesses voluntarily locate downtown, using their own money? There can only be one answer to this question: When spending their own money, most businesses have decided that the most productive use of it is to invest it somewhere other than downtown Wichita.

It is adding insult to injury when we realize that the tax money given away comes largely from people who have voted -- with their own dollars -- not to do what these tax dollars are used to promote. It is a further blow when we realize that the money given to downtown businesses in the form of incentives makes our town poorer as a whole. Why is that? It's because that most people and businesses, when exercising their own best judgment, have decided that investing in downtown Wichita is not the most productive use of their resources. When the government, using its power to tax, makes a different decision for us, resources are not allocated as efficiently and productively. Therefore, we are poorer.

The result of all this is that we have the spectacle of the people of Wichita, voting with their own dollars, making one choice. Then the politicians and various quasi-public organizations say, "No, citizens of Wichita, you are wrong," and impose their will on the people of Wichita through their power to tax. How arrogant is that?

This is a version of a letter that I have been sending to (mostly) Wichita-area newspapers, television stations, and radio stations. Some have expressed some interest and have even assigned reporters to look into this, but so far no stories have appeared.

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February 11, 2005

Sherry Chisenhall
The Wichita Eagle

Dear Ms. Chishenhall,

I am writing to express my concern over the lack of reporting on some important issues regarding the downtown Wichita arena tax.

My research has uncovered several findings, which I summarize here:

1. The WSU Center for Economic Development and Business Research study does not include depreciation costs, even though Government Accounting Standards Board Statement 34 requires governments to depreciate their assets. Incredibly, the CEDBR at WSU was not aware of this requirement when they prepared the study that was used to promote the proposed arena. They admitted this when I called it to their attention.

2. The WSU study did not allow for the substitution effect. This is the term used to describe what research has found: that much of the new economic activity such as bars and restaurants that might appear around a downtown arena would be bars and restaurants that have moved from other parts of the city. There is little or no new economic activity, just movement of existing activity. Mr. Ed Wolverton, President of the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation, admitted this oversight in a television news story.

3. Arena proponents cite economic benefit as a reason why the community as a whole should pay for the construction and operation of the arena. I have found no research that supports the claim of economic benefit. There is, however, ample research to the contrary. For example, in a paper titled "Professional Sports Facilities, Franchises and Urban Economic Development" (UMBC Economics Department Working Paper 03-103) by Dennis Coates and Brad R. Humphreys of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County we find this quote:

"Siegfried and Zimbalist (2000) recently surveyed the growing literature on retrospective studies of the economic impact of sports facilities and franchises on local economies. The literature published in peer-reviewed academic journals differs strikingly from the predictions in 'economic impact studies.' No retrospective econometric study found any evidence of positive economic impact from professional sports facilities or franchises on urban economies."

I created a handout I made for the legislators that provides more information. A link to it is here:

http://wichitaliberty.org/files/Sedgwick_County_Legislative_Delegation_2005-02-05.pdf

There has been much recent news about the financial performance of publicly-owned institutions. Often government leaders proclaim their ignorance about what the facts of the matter were, and then your newspaper has to editorialize about government leaders not doing due diligence before committing to projects. Mr. Brownlee wrote such an editorial just this week.

Here we have a final opportunity to examine the issues involving the wisdom of a taxpayer-built arena before it is too late. I am not asking that you believe what I have said just on my say-so. I believe, however, that the people of our town would appreciate someone with the skill and experience of your reporters performing an investigation to see if they reach the same conclusions I have.