Part of the Wichita Eagle opinion watch series.

A writer in the April 2, 2008 Wichita Eagle presses the case for passenger train service in Wichita. But there are several problems with the writer's argument.

The writer makes this claim: "With Kansas' vast wind resource, we could power our trains with no fossil fuels." Yes, there is a lot of wind in Kansas. But it doesn't blow continuously. What does the writer suggest we power the trains with at those times? Until there is an economically feasible method of storing the electricity generated by wind, we will be reliant on traditional methods of power generation. Wind can only be a supplement.

The writer admits that high-speed passenger train service will require a lot of public money. That's okay, he says, as we presently spend a lot on our roads and traffic systems. The government-built and owned roads are frequently criticized, however. The fact that we've spent a lot on them -- with often unsatisfactory results -- is not an argument in favor of more government involvement in transportation systems. There is, in fact, a small movement towards more private highways, and there are persuasive arguments that all roads and highways should be privately owned.

If there is in fact a demand for high-speed rail travel in Kansas and the United States, let private entrepreneurs, rather than government, lead its development. That's the best way to have a system that meets the needs of customers, rather than the needs of politicians and government bureaucrats.

I wonder if the writer remembers that the government does have a track record of owning and operating a railroad. That's Amtrak, and having mentioned that, I believe no more needs to be said.

In a column in the February 27, 2008 Wichita Eagle ("Smoking ban issue not one to negotiate"), columnist Mark McCormick quotes Charlie Claycomb, co-chair of Tobacco Free Wichita, as equating a smoking section in a restaurant with "a urinating section in a swimming pool."

This is a ridiculous comparison. A person can't tell upon entering a swimming pool if someone has urinated in it. But people can easily tell upon entering a restaurant or bar if people are smoking.

Besides this, Mr. McCormick's article seeks to explain how markets aren't able to solve the smoking problem, and that there is no negotiating room, no middle ground. There must be a smoking ban, he concludes.

As way of argument, McCormick claims, I think, that restaurants prepare food in sanitary kitchens only because of government regulation, not because of markets. We see, however, that food is still being prepared in unsanitary kitchens, and food recalls, even in meat processing plants where government inspectors are present every day, still manage to happen. So government regulation itself is not a failsafe measure.

Markets -- that is, consumers -- do exert powerful forces on businesses. If a restaurant like McDonald's serves food that makes people ill, which do you think the restaurant management fears most: a government fine, or the negative publicity? Even small local restaurants live and die by word of mouth. Those that serve poor quality food or food that makes people ill will suffer losses, not as much from government regulation as from the workings of markets.

But I will grant that Mr. McCormick does have a small point here. Just by looking at food, you probably can't tell if it's going to make you ill to eat it. Someone's probably going to need to get sick before the word gets out. But you easily can tell if someone's smoking in the bar or restaurant you just entered. Or, if people are smoking but you can't detect it, I would image that the danger to health from breathing secondhand smoke is either nonexistent or very small.

The problem with a smoking ban written into law rather than reliance on markets, is that everyone has to live by the same rules. Living by the same rules is good when the purpose is to keep people and their property safe from harm, as is the case with laws against theft and murder. But it's different when we pass laws intended to keep people safe from harms that they themselves can easily avoid, just by staying out of those places where people are smoking. For the people who value being in the smoky place more than they dislike the negative effects of the smoke, they can make that decision.

This is not a middle-ground position. It is a position that respects the individual. It lets each person have what they individually prefer, rather than having a majority -- no matter how lop-sided -- make the same decision for everyone. Especially when that decision, as Mr. Claycomb stated in another Wichita Eagle article, will "tick off everybody." Who benefits from a law that does that?

Other articles on this topic:

Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions
http://wichitaliberty.org/node/619

Testimony Opposing Kansas Smoking Ban
http://wichitaliberty.org/node/618

On Tuesday December 4, 2007, Sedgwick County hosted the formal groundbreaking ceremony for the downtown Wichita arena. While local government leaders and news media hailed the event as a transforming event in the history of Wichita, this writer does not share their enthusiasm.

The building of this arena is government interventionism at its worst. Stakeholders in the arena, such as Bob Hanson of the Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission, demonstrate the harm of rent-seeking, as they seek to obtain, at taxpayer expense, a large and expensive playhouse for their pleasure. Supporters dressed their arguments for the arena in the language of public goods and economic development. But Henry Hazlitt and others have explained that the money spent on the arena is money that wasn't spent somewhere else, with the attendant loss of jobs and economic activity somewhere else. (See my review of Economics in One Lesson at wichitaliberty.org/node/226, and my article "Prepare for Sales Tax-Induced Job Effects Now" at wichitaliberty.org/node/31, also printed in The Wichita Eagle.) As local governments consider an expensive plan for development of the surrounding area, that money -- just like the money collected through the sales tax -- is money that citizens won't be spending somewhere else of their own choosing.

Even the most basic economic arguments given for the arena were flawed. I found out that the estimated operating budget for the arena was defective, as officials were not aware of, or did not care to disclose, the proper government accounting standards the arena would be required to use. (See my articles "Arenas' Financial Statements Not Complete" at wichitaliberty.org/node/13 and "WSU Study on Downtown Wichita Arena Not Complete" at wichitaliberty.org/node/12.)

Government, too, is not qualified to build and own assets like this arena. Consider the status of the Kansas Coliseum, which having opened in 1978 is only 29 years old. Yet three years ago we were told that it required extensive renovation for continued use, that poor condition being the stick used to promote the downtown arena. (Century II, not much older, is often described in the same terms.) So can you spot the irony in Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Dave Unruh's statement at the groundbreaking? "I think probably most everyone here...will have a story they can tell their children and grandchildren on how they had a part in changing the profile and character of our community." If this new arena suffers the same fate as the Coliseum, one generation from now we'll be building another.

Further, government and its officials are not allowed to campaign for the arena as they did. Kansas Attorney General Opinion 93-125 states: "…public funds may not be used to promote or advocate the position of a governing body on a matter which is before the electorate." If you examine news media accounts of the debate before the election in November 2004, you will see that our local government officials and their quasi-governmental surrogates were working in full force for the passage of the arena and its tax, in direct violation of this regulation. See my article "Government Funds Promoting Downtown Wichita Arena" at wichitaliberty.org/node/342.

Finally, by building a government arena, we lose the opportunity to have a privately-owned arena. A private arena, you say? Wouldn't it have to be owned by greedy capitalists, only seeking to exploit our town just to earn a profit? But in the absence of government coercion or intervention, a business can earn a profit only by meeting customers' needs, and doing that efficiently. Governments and their bureaucrats do not have this powerful motivating factor. The absence of the computation of profit and loss means that we will never know whether the resources spent on the arena were spent wisely. See my article "A Public or Private Downtown Wichita Arena, Which is Desirable?" at wichitaliberty.org/node/284.

From John Todd.

City of Wichita Mayor and Council Members
455 N. Main
Wichita, Kansas 67203

Subject: Testimony in Opposition to Funding for the current New Communities Initiative Area (tract known as 67214 Target Area) or New Urban Renewal Target Area.

Dear Mr. Mayor and City Council Members,

My name is John Todd. I am a Wichita area real estate broker and developer, and I am here to speak as a private citizen. I speak in opposition to the city’s $250,000 Funding proposal for the current New Communities Initiative Area, because I believe this program in reality, represents the resurrection of the failed government Urban Renewal housing programs of the 1960-70’s.

An article in The Wichita Eagle “Plan offers hope for city's troubled heart” (November 14, 2007) reports on the development of a plan named New Communities Initiative, its goal being the revitalizing of a depressed neighborhood in Wichita. The saddest thing in this article is the realization that there is consideration of a plan for large-scale government intervention to solve problems that are, to a large extent, caused by government itself.

The article laments low high school graduation rates and the low proficiency in math and reading. We should make sure we remember that almost all these children have gone to public schools, that is, schools owned and run by government. Plans to improve public schools almost always call for more spending. While education bureaucrats do not like to admit this, spending on government schools in Kansas has been increasing rapidly in recent years. The results of these huge spending increases are just being learned, but it is unlikely that it will produce the dramatic results that are needed.

There is a simple solution to improving schools that won't cost more than what is already spent, and should cost even less: school choice. In parts of our country where there is school choice through vouchers -- or better, through tax credits -- it is low-income parents who are most appreciative of the chance for their children to escape the terrible public schools. Further, there is persuasive evidence that when faced with viable competition, the public schools themselves improve.

In Kansas, however, there is little hope that meaningful school choice will be implemented soon. Although Winston Brooks, superintendent of Wichita schools, says he is open to competition and accountability, it is a false bravado. The political climate in Kansas is such that it is nearly impossible to get even a charter school application approved, much less any form of school choice with real teeth. (See "What's the Matter With Kansas," January 3, 2007 Wall Street Journal.) As the government schools consume increasing resources, parents find it even harder to pay taxes and private school tuition. So the government schools, responsible for graduates who can't read and calculate, extend their monopoly.

A continual problem in depressed areas of cities is low employment. Government again contributes to this problem by creating barriers to employment, most prominently through the minimum wage law. People have jobs because their employers value the work the employees perform more than what they pay them in wages and benefits. When government says you must pay a higher wage than what the potential employees can contribute through their labors, these low-productivity workers won't be hired. As the minimum wage rises, which it is on the federal level, it becomes even more difficult for the least productive workers to find jobs.

The reason that some young people find it difficult to get jobs is that they don't have the education, training, or experience to be very productive at a job. While no one likes to work for only, say $3 or $4 per hour, working for that wage is preferable to being unemployed when the minimum wage is $6 per hour. While working for $4 per hour the worker gains experience at a specific job, and experience at holding any job in general. Soon, as workers become more productive, their wages will rise. Sitting on the sidelines not working or wasting time in a government job-training program does the workers no good.

The article mentions the plight of children whose parents are in prison. More generally, this neighborhood is plagued by crime and gangs. While I do not know the proportion of these people that are in prison for crimes related to drugs, it most surely is high. Gangs exist almost solely because of the trade in illegal drugs. The government's prohibition of drugs, then, plays a huge role in the problem of crime.

The solution is to legalize drugs. Legalize all drugs, without exception. This should not be interpreted as an endorsement of drug use, as drug abuse is a serious health problem for many people. The health problems that drug abuse causes might even increase after legalization. But the crime problem would cease to exist. No longer would people be in prison simply because they are drug addicts. With legalization, the price of drugs would rapidly decline to perhaps the cost of a pack of cigarettes or a few cocktails each day. No longer would drug addicts have to raise several hundred dollars per day through crime. No longer would gangs find selling drugs profitable, and they would likely disappear. Do the owners of liquor stores shoot each other over turf wars, and do their customers engage in crime each day to pay for their fix of cheap alcohol?

The alternative to legalization of drugs is more law enforcement aimed at decreasing the supply of illegal drugs. This government action, if successful, has this consequence: by reducing the supply of drugs, it increases their price, thereby making it even more lucrative to deal in illegal drugs.

Then there is the government's war on poverty. The economist Walter Williams recently wrote this:

Since President Johnson's War on Poverty, controlling for inflation, the nation has spent $9 trillion on about 80 anti-poverty programs. To put that figure in perspective, last year's U.S. GDP was $11 trillion; $9 trillion exceeds the GDP of any nation except the U.S. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita uncovered the result of the War on Poverty -- dependency and self-destructive behavior.

In the same article:

There's one segment of the black population that suffers only a 9.9 percent poverty rate, and only 13.7 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. There's another segment that suffers a 39.5 percent poverty rate, and 58.1 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Among whites, one segment suffers a 6 percent poverty rate, and only 9.9 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. The other segment suffers a 26.4 percent poverty rate, and 52 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. What do you think distinguishes the high and low poverty populations among blacks? ... The only distinction between both the black and white populations is marriage -- lower poverty in married-couple families.

In 1960, only 28 percent of black females ages 15 to 44 were never married and illegitimacy among blacks was 22 percent. Today, the never-married rate is 56 percent and illegitimacy stands at 70 percent. If today's black family structure were what it was in 1960, the overall black poverty rate would be in or near single digits. The weakening of the black family structure, and its devastating consequences, have nothing to do with the history of slavery or racial discrimination.

Williams and Thomas Sowell, who have studied the issue extensively, conclude that it is government anti-poverty programs that are the cause of a permanent underclass. These programs should be canceled.

We see that government -- through its poor schools, the raising of barriers to employment through minimum wage laws, the prohibition of drugs, and the culture of dependency and family disintegration supported by welfare -- has been a contributing factor, probably the most important factor, in the decline of this neighborhood. It is foolhardy to believe that more government programs can reverse the damage already done by past and present government programs. While I'm sure that the intent of the New Communities Initiative and its coordinating members is noble, the reality is that government intervention is dangerous to the future of Wichita and to this neighborhood.

A few excerpts from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius's inaugural address from January 2007:

Yet our opportunities will be limited only if we fail to come together around a shared vision for our state. Only a failure to act as "One Kansas" can compromise our future and dash our hopes.

We all recognize, in our hearts, that we are only as strong as the most vulnerable among us. It's not enough to allow a few to reach the stars while others live a life of limited horizons. The promise of our state is best realized when all our citizens are able to achieve their highest potential.

Therefore, we must embrace a new politics of true empowerment, understanding that diversity of thought, of belief, of opinion creates a vibrant, prosperous state. We must recognize that our differences make us stronger, yet those differences are never greater than our similarities.

We can form a more perfect union, we can achieve greatness, and we can honor our birthright as a state only if we join hands and meet the future as one.

Together, we're humble enough … Together, we are a mighty chorus …

In her speech the governor is telling us -- although she does not say this explicitly -- that the State of Kansas is more important than the people who live in Kansas. She tells me that if I do not subscribe to her shared vision for Kansas, it is I who will be responsible for its failure. Well, Madame Governor, there are very few areas where I agree with you and your vision for the future of our state.

In case you don't recognize it, the name for what the governor espouses is collectivism. Collectivism places the interests of the state above the interests of individuals. It says that man exists not for his own end, but instead exists to serve the state, and the state's needs outweigh all others. If your goals are in harmony with the state's goals, and if you are willing to condone a coercive state pursuing those goals through force, that's good for you. The next election, however, may bring a different governor who has a vision that you don't share, this time backed by an even-stronger state apparatus to enforce it.

Collectivism is the enemy of freedom and liberty. When the Ludwig von Mises Institute commemorated F.A. Hayek, it summed up his main contribution to political economy as "Collectivism is Slavery." His important book "The Road to Serfdom" illustrates how central planning for the common good -- that would be the "shared vision" of the Sebelius-led "One Kansas" -- leads to the loss of all individual economic and personal freedom.

Collectivism is the opposite of individualism. Individualism does not mean that a person lives in isolation from others, although people certainly may do that if they wish. Instead, individualism means that people live their own lives as they best see fit. And I hope that most people don't see themselves as a tool the state uses to serve the ends of others under the direction of Governor Sebelius. Instead, they live for themselves, seeking to improve their own situation and that of others around them, on a voluntary basis.

That is the difference between liberty and what Governor Sebelius wants for Kansas. We can rely on voluntary arrangements made freely by consenting people. Or, we can have state mandates backed by electoral majorities or bureaucratic action, enforced by law. Done in the spirit of "One Kansas," of course.

In her speech, the governor promoted diversity of thought, but she opposes any move towards helping the citizens of Kansas escape the most conformist bureaucracy our state has: its public schools. Allowing parents to choose the school they send their children to, thereby releasing the forces of entrepreneurial creativity in schools, would dramatically increase the diversity of education in our state. As it is, most Kansas parents have no real choice but to send their children to the government schools, which, by their very nature, induce conformity and allegiance to the state. "One Kansas" is, thus, perpetuated.

From the Goldwater Institute (www.goldwaterinstitute.org):

A recent Arizona Republic letter to the editor lamented the fact that our government funds war, but not universal health care. The writer asks what that says about our values. That letter got me thinking, what does government spending say about our values?

In the book Who Really Cares, economist Arthur C. Brooks points out that Americans who believe in limited government give more to others on average than those who believe in active government. Believers in small government give more time, money, and even blood. They give more to secular causes, too. This is not to say that there are not very generous individuals of every political stripe. The issue is one of emphasis and how much values are, in fact, reflected in a government budget.

The Wall Street Journal just published an article on the revival of the "religious left." The religious left, mostly left-leaning clergy, agitates for increased minimum wages and social program spending.

One must wonder, though, how virtuous a society is when traditionally charitable giving must be forced on people through taxation. Perhaps those who recommend such a policy are too unwilling to give of themselves. As Dr. Brooks' research suggests perhaps one's values are best reflected in one's personal spending rather than in the spending of other people's money.

An excerpt from the book Who Really Cares, by Arthur C. Brooks (See www.arthurbrooks.net):

Let us be clear: Government spending is not charity. It is not a voluntary sacrifice by individuals. No matter how beneficial or humane it might be, no matter how necessary it is for providing public services, it is still the obligatory redistribution of tax revenues. Because government spending is not charity, sanctimonious yard signs do not prove that the bearers are charitable or that their opponents are selfish.

Listen to this article in audio by clicking here.

As Wichita considers the need for a new public library, a more central and fundamental question goes unconsidered: what is the role of the public library today, and do we really want one?

Consider the difference between public and private institutions. The public institution has to satisfy only a small group of people, namely the politicians that fund it. Yes, once in a while voters get to select the politicians, but issues such as a library are usually far down the list of important topics, notwithstanding a recent Wichita Eagle editorial promoting a public library as “one of the most important cultural institutions in a community. It's an investment in our future, a symbol of our values and aspirations.”

Private institutions, or businesses, on the other hand, are voted on every day by customers, who choose one over the other for their own personal reasons. This is the idea of “consumer sovereignty.”

Public institutions, open to all, appeal to few in the end. The problem caused by unwanted “customers” at the central library is well known, and must serve to decrease its usage by some large amount.

Reading the 2006 annual report of the library, it appears that 34% of the loans made at the central branch were art, music, and video. (Due to the way the library presented the figures, I couldn't determine this number for the branches.) Disregarding the presumably small number of artworks loaned (in comparison to the number of DVDs), the library is competing with services provided by the free market, namely video rental stores.

Even the loaning of books competes with bookstores. The library reports tells us that the value of the books the library circulated -- that is, what it would cost if each person who borrowed a book had bought the book instead -- is $29,068,288. I am tempted to ask what the City of Wichita has against local bookstore owners. But the reality is that the library competes rather poorly with bookstores. It has been many years since I relied on the library for timely books in my field, computers and software engineering. I found the shelves filled with titles referring to software and computers long out of date.

Today, if you want to borrow a recently-released book, especially a bestseller, you are likely to find yourself waiting in line behind dozens of borrowers, each with up to two weeks to use the book. This makes buying the book an attractive alternative, which is often what I do.

If you want to read a classic, good luck to you. I wanted to read Capitalism and Freedom, one of Time Magazine's 100 most important books published since World War II. But, the library didn't own it.

Could a privately-owned library be what Wichita needs? Could it do a better job? How would such a library work?

As it turns out, I can't find an example of a city with a private library. That alone doesn't mean a private library couldn't work. It is, I believe, more a symptom of our increasing reliance on government instead of private solutions.

There are many ways a private library could work. Patrons might be charged a small admission fee. Patrons might buy monthly or annual memberships for unlimited use. There might be a fee for checking out items, perhaps based on the newness or popularity of the item and the length of the loan period. Items might carry advertising. Meeting rooms and other services could carry rental fees.

The point is that the library would be directly accountable to its customers who use the library, instead of a governing board, the city council, and the “public,” whoever that is. The library, wishing to earn a profit for its owners, would have strong motivation to provide services that people are willing to actually pay for. It would be free to act on its own to raise capital and provide these services, instead of complaining about the lack of funding, which is the case with the current library, as with nearly all other cultural institutions, too.

Plans for new libraries call for coffee shops in the mode of Starbucks. Will the refreshments served be free? Of course not. So charging for some services is okay, it seems.

What about people who can't afford even the small fees a private library might charge? We are all already paying these fees now in the form of taxes. We are already paying for a library, both those who use it and those who don't. Spreading out the costs over everyone doesn't make it more affordable for the town as a whole. As Thomas Sowell recently wrote: “This was all before politicians gave us the idea that the things we could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively through the magic of government.”

I wish that the Wichita Eagle editorial board would consider the alternative to government provision of things like libraries, entertainment facilities, airports, arts and culture, schools, and many other aspects of life. Relying on coercive government action over individual and voluntary group initiative makes us less free as a country and city.

The Wichita Eagle reports that Mayor Carl Brewer and City Manager George Kolb received free upgrades to business class seats on a recent AirTran flight. The two are indignant over being questioned about the propriety of accepting the gift. The Eagle described Kolb as "peeved." The Mayor was moved to write a letter to the Eagle describing its reporting as a "cheap shot" with its "lapse in basic journalistic standards" a risk to "harming reputations."

The AirTran station manager who granted the free upgrade was quoted as saying "Do I expect something from those people? No!"

Wichita civic and business leaders who also traveled on the flight were bothered by the incident, according to Eagle reporting.

Who's right in this story? The answer is: everyone!

The Eagle is right to report this story. It happened; therefore it's news.

The AirTran station manager was correct in giving the upgrades to the politicians. She clearly knows who butters her bread. I presume she was being discreet when she denied expecting something from those people -- something other than the up to $7 million annual subsidy provided by the City, Sedgwick County, and the State of Kansas, that is.

The Wichita civic and business leaders are right to be miffed, as they are the ones who buy a lot of AirTran tickets, and if anyone deserves to receive a free upgrade, it's them.

The two politicians are right to be peeved about the reporting of the appearance of a conflict of interest. That's because there is a conflict of interest, since the city and other local governments give up to $7 million of taxpayer money each year to AirTran. Any relations between the airline and these governments must be analyzed in the light of the subsidy. This is symptomatic of the problems that arise when government intervenes in areas properly left to markets.

When I receive the occasional free upgrade to first class, I say "Thank you, American Airlines!" and accept it gladly, with clean conscience, knowing that I have done nothing wrong. The fact that Mayor Carl Brewer and City Manager George Kolb weren't able to do this, coupled with how their acceptance of a business courtesy caused such a stir, tells us a great deal about the problems of government interventionism.

From Dan Mitchell, Center for Freedom & Prosperity http://www.freedomandprosperity.org

John Stossel eviscerates David Brooks, the ostensibly conservative columnist for the New York Times. Brooks has argued for big new government initiatives to boost human capital. Stossel correctly notes, though, that Brooks wants to expand failed government programs when the right approach is to move in the other direction:

David Brooks is a bright guy, so I wonder how he can blame the free market for failing in this way. He continues, "Despite all the incentives, 30 percent of kids drop out of high school and the college graduation rate has been flat for a generation." Excuse me, but why is that the market's fault? Government dominates education in America. K-12 education is a coercive, often rigidly unionized government virtual monopoly that fights every attempt to experiment with free-market competition. Brooks writes that Hamiltonians like him "think government should help people get the tools they need to compete." But when has government ever been good at that? He claims the state can "increase the quality of human capital" by, for example, providing "Quality preschool [to] help young children from ... disorganized homes. ... " Really? What is the chance that it would be "quality" preschool if government runs it? Even the acclaimed Head Start has not been shown to have any lasting effect on academic performance. ...When I asked Brooks why a government that performed as ineptly as FEMA did after Hurricane Katrina will be better at running preschools, he said, "Some lives are so screwed up, it's hard to make them worse." Government coercion almost always makes things worse. It discourages individual effort, and sucks capital away from more productive uses. ...America became an economic power despite, not because of, Hamiltonian intervention. Hong Kong and much of East Asia went from abject poverty to affluence in a few decades not because their governments gave people "tools they need to compete" -- they didn't -- but because they exercised limited powers.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2007/06/27/big-government...

Writing in the July 8, 2007 Washington Post, George Will has a column titled "Declaration of Dependence." The link to it is here, although you may have to register (for free) to read it.

All through my public school education, we were taught that Franklin Roosevelt was godlike for saving the country from the Great Depression. While I don't directly know what schoolchildren are taught today, I imagine that the stature of Roosevelt has only increased, as his vision of large, overpowering government is in perfect alignment with the goals of public schools. This is more that I need to unlearn.

Some excerpts:

Some mornings during the autumn of 1933, when the unemployment rate was 22 percent, the president, before getting into his wheelchair, sat in bed, surrounded by economic advisers, setting the price of gold. One morning he said he might raise it 21 cents: "It's a lucky number because it's three times seven." His Treasury secretary wrote that if people knew how gold was priced "they would be frightened." … In his second inaugural address, Roosevelt sought "unimagined power" to enforce the "proper subordination" of private power to public power. He got it … Roosevelt, however, made interest-group politics systematic and routine. New Deal policies were calculated to create many constituencies -- labor, retirees, farmers, union members -- to be dependent on government. … Before Roosevelt, the federal government was unimpressive relative to the private sector.

Writing from Davenport, Iowa

A column by economist Walter E. Williams (Why we're a divided nation) strongly makes the case for more decision making by free markets rather than by the government through the political process.

When decisions are made through free markets, Dr. Williams says, both parties win, because in a free market, parties voluntarily enter into only those transactions that benefit them.

When decisions are made for us by the government, however, it is almost always the case that one party's gain is someone else's loss. Therefore, there is conflict. The more decisions made through politics, the more potential for conflict. Coalitions arise in order to try to get more from the government, and the most effective coalitions "are those with a proven record of being the most divisive -- those based on race, ethnicity, religion and region."

The final paragraph of the column is this:

The best thing the president and Congress can do to heal our country is to reduce the impact of government on our lives. Doing so will not only produce a less divided country and greater economic efficiency but bear greater faith and allegiance to the vision of America held by our founders -- a country of limited government."

In an earlier post, I mentioned some columns by Dr. Williams that I thought were important. This column is certainly one of his best, as it very simply, in one short page, shows us a major fault in our current political landscape.

I received this in an email from Ron Paul's campaign:

As my great mentor Ludwig von Mises showed, government meddling in the economy creates conflict, as special-interest groups seek to rip us off through big government. The voluntarism of the free market, on the other hand, brings social cooperation and peace.

I have never heard Ron Paul describe Ludwig von Mises as his mentor. Now I know I really like Ron Paul!

This is an excellent article that exposes how little some people like Michael Moore think about the systems they consider corrupt and unworkable. It appears that Mr. Moore is so consumed with an anti-market bias that he hasn't really considered the true causes of the problem with healthcare in America. He isn't the first person to have problems with an anti-market bias, nor do I suspect he'll be the last.

Michael Moore Confirms that Government Health Care is Sicko
by Diana M. Ernst, Pacific Reserach Institute

Michael Moore showed up in Sacramento last week to promote his film Sicko. Senator Sheila Kuehl hailed Moore as a prophet of truth to the American people but the filmmaker is so mired in his own health hysterics that he regularly contradicts himself .

He rails against “for-profit” health care, but 85 percent of U.S. hospitals are non-profit, and almost half of privately insured Americans have polices from non-profit health insurers.

Moore referred to the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor hospital in Los Angeles, where a patient died of a perforated bowel after lying on the emergency room floor for 45 minutes. Since 2004, the hospital has received more than a dozen state and federal safety citations. Hospital errors included leaving sick patients unattended which resulted in death for three of them, giving patients the wrong medications, and using Taser stun guns to restrain psychiatric patients.

This hospital is not private, however. It is owned by the County of Los Angeles. So much for reliable government care. And the private insurers Moore rails against are currently selling health policies laden with government mandates and regulations.

The Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) has reported that mandated benefits have increased to the more than 1,800 today. In some states, mandated benefits have raised the cost of individual health insurance by 45 percent. Government solutions that create more government amount to nothing but expensive salt in the wound. Such is Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan to tax hospitals and physicians for mandated health coverage, and such is Senator Kuehl’s government monopoly plan, promoted as a "single payer" system.

We need to help insurers to be more competitive, not scrap them for big-government bureaucracy. Mr. Moore’s foolish preference of abolishing private insurance in favor of government-run, single-payer health care will not create universal care, only a government monopoly. In other words, Moore thinks the government should provide “free” health care that isn’t required to meet any standards.

Mr. Moore also thinks Canada is a good role model, but two years ago the Canadian Supreme Court found that government monopoly health care violates basic human rights. The winning plaintiff in this case, Mr. Zeliotis, needed hip surgery. When he tried to pay privately for his operation rather than wait in the public line (which takes two to four years) the Canadian government stopped him. Mr. Zeliotis argued against government interference with his freedom to choose private medical care. The denial of such a choice prolonged his pain and threatened his safety.

Mr. Moore also likes the single-payer system in Cuba, a one-party communist state. Some 11 million Cubans attend run-down facilities, receive dated prescription drugs, and are even required to bring their own sheets, food and soap to the hospital. Communist Party bosses get better treatment but when it came time for the great dictator Fidel Castro to go under the knife, he flew in a specialist from Spain. To adopt the health-care system of a totalitarian dictatorship like Cuba would be kind of, well, sicko. But government-run health care also presents problems right here at home.

Medicaid was instituted in the 1960s under President Johnson for the poor, but it has grown far beyond its capacity, putting its financial capabilities under great strain. In order to keep costs down, Medicaid underpays physicians, who have increasingly stopped accepting Medicaid beneficiaries as a result. Government restrictions on physicians also make it challenging to get prescription drugs for Medicaid patients.

Mr. Moore's remedies fail as heath-care reform and do not even amount to effective propaganda. He needs less rhetoric and more direct experience. He should get on a Canadian waiting list for treatment, try the “second” system that serves most Cubans, or follow a Medicaid patient’s struggle to get health care from the government.

Meanwhile, union nurses and hospital employees were among 1,000 people who must have taken sick time to cheer Michael Moore Tuesday. Perhaps Speaker Nuñez and Senator Kuehl will investigate how patient care suffered while their caregivers took to the streets.

The economist Walter E. Williams has recent column that places the recent lobbying scandal in proper perspective.

Professor Williams explains to us that given the "awesome growth of government control over business, property, employment and other areas of our lives" Washington politicians (and I would add state and local politicians too) are in the position to grant valuable favors. "The greater their power to grant favors, the greater the value of being able to influence Congress, and there's no better influence than money."

Continuing: "The generic favor sought is to get Congress, under one ruse or another, to grant a privilege or right to one group of Americans that will be denied another group of Americans. A variant of this privilege is to get Congress to do something that would be criminal if done privately."

"Here's just one among possibly thousands of examples. If Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) used goons and violence to stop people from buying sugar from Caribbean producers so that sugar prices would rise, making it easier for ADM to sell more of its corn syrup sweetener, they'd wind up in jail. If they line the coffers of congressmen, they can buy the same result without risking imprisonment. Congress simply does the dirty work for them by enacting sugar import quotas and tariffs. The two most powerful committees of Congress are the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance committees. These committees are in charge of granting tax favors. Their members are besieged with campaign contributions. Why? A tweak here and a tweak there in the tax code can mean millions of dollars."

What is the solution? I believe, and I know Dr. Williams does too, that we should reduce the power that government has over our lives. I believe we should rely more on free markets for solutions to problems, as these markets are composed of people voluntarily entering into transactions, rather than a coercive government forcing decisions on us based on who lobbied the hardest. Dr. Williams also relates this story and solution: "Nearly two decades ago, during dinner with the late Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek, I asked him if he had the power to write one law that would get government out of our lives, what would that law be? Professor Hayek replied he'd write a law that read: Whatever Congress does for one American it must do for all Americans."

Hayek also wrote in his book The Road to Serfdom: "As the coercive power of the state will alone decide who is to have what, the only power worth having will be a share in the exercise of this directing power." We are well down this road, where government becomes more important than liberty and individuality. This is the battle we need to fight. Lobbying scandals are just a symptom and manifestation of the larger problem.

Winning Lawsuits: How Being Irresponsible Pays Off
Sarah McIntosh, Flint Hills Center for Public Policy

They are everywhere -- in the office, on the street, in the malls, and even in your house. They can end up costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars. No, it’s not pests I’m referring to. What is this pervasive problem, you ask? Torts.

Simply put, a tort is a negligent or intentional civil wrong. Tort law has been around for a long time, but in the last couple of decades tort liabilities have expanded exponentially.

It used to be that if you invited someone to your house you were responsible for taking reasonable steps to protect people from hazards in your home. Now, however, in many states you are responsible for protecting people who you did not invite -- even people breaking into your home.

Our culture has changed in the United States. Instead of treasuring personal responsibility and property rights, we reward people who act unreasonably and unlawfully.

Take for instance the case of the homeowners in Pennsylvania who lost a $500,000 lawsuit to someone who broke into their home. When the robber left their house he tried to escape through the garage. The automatic door opener was not working, however, and since the door to the house had locked when the robber shut it, he was stuck in the garage. He spent eight days living on a can of soda and dry dog food. He was awarded that $500,000 for his “undue mental anguish.”

The robber broke the law and violated the homeowners’ property rights and still thought he had the right to compensation for anguish brought on by his own illegal behavior.

Or what about the man who won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand? The neighbor didn’t see that the young man was busy stealing his hubcaps.

Should this outcome be surprising? Maybe not. We have been on this path for decades, a path of transforming right and wrong not based on our own actions or rights but because we don’t like to see people physically or emotionally hurt. So, we ignore the fact that the party held liable is “hurt” by forcing compensation to make ourselves feel better for the irresponsible person’s pain.

For instance, a jury awarded a woman $780,000 after she broke her ankle when she tripped over a toddler running inside a furniture store. The store had to pay for her pain even though the running child was her own. Apparently the jury ignored the fact that the woman had a responsibility to control her own child. Is this really the direction we want to take our society?

Do we want to live in a world where we aren’t expected to take responsibility for our misbehaving children, or our own stupid actions? While that may sound comforting to some, it means that EVERYONE is potentially liable. If you have any assets, watch out.

We have created a culture that is quick to blame others for our own mistakes. Take the case of the woman who sued Winnebago when she set the cruise control to 70 on her RV and left the seat to make herself a sandwich. Apparently Winnebago should have explained in the owner’s manual that cruise control isn’t the same as automatic pilot.

The consequences of these lawsuits are that whenever we buy something we have pages of warnings about products that seem to grow more ridiculous yearly. We create a societal cost by shifting the blame. When companies are sued, their costs are born by their future customers. When individuals are held to too high of a standard in their homes, society starts to lose out on the value of spending time with people in their homes.

We also lose some freedom when these behaviors are allowed. We lose the freedom of how we want to live in our own homes. Should we put up warnings for those breaking in? Should we leave some extra food and water in the garage just in case?

As society breaks down along these lines, more and more laws will be created to legislate “fairness,” compensation, and morality. Children will learn to blame others for their own bad acts. No one will be responsible for themselves but everyone will be responsible for everyone else.

When unreasonable, risky, or stupid behavior is rewarded, everyone ends up paying. Is that what we want?

Sarah McIntosh is Vice President of Programs for the Kansas-based Flint Hills Center for Public Policy. A complete bio on Ms. McIntosh can be found at http://www.flinthills.org/content/view/24/39/, and she can be reached at sarah.mcintosh@flinthills.org. To learn more about the Flint Hills Center, please visit www.flinthills.org.

The Flint Hills Center for Public Policy is an independent voice for sound public policy in Kansas. As a non-profit, nonpartisan think tank, the Center provides critical information about policy options to legislators and citizens.

I, Pencil is one of the most important and influential writings that explain the necessity for limited government. A simple object that we may not give much throught to, the story of the pencil illustrates the importance of markets, and the impossibility of centralized economic planning.

From the afterword to I, Pencil by Milton Friedman:

Leonard E. Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand -- the possibility of cooperation without coercion -- and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”

Link to a pdf of I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/I,%20Pencil%202006.pdf

Link to Leonard E. Read reading I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/events/detail.asp?id=6239

From Dan Mitchell:

Walter Williams summarizes why the Food and Drug Administration is likely to delay the approval of drugs that benefit people. Simply stated, they adopt a risk-averse strategy to avoid being criticized for allowing a dangerous drug on the market, even though almost all drugs can be dangerous:

…if you're an FDA official, what are your incentives in terms of whether to approve or disapprove the marketing of a drug that has a tremendous benefit to some patients and poses a health threat to others? Former FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt hinted at the answer when he said, "In all our FDA history, we are unable to find a single instance where a Congressional committee investigated the failure of FDA to approve a new drug. But the times when hearings have been held to criticize our approval of a new drug have been so frequent that we have not been able to count them. The message to FDA staff could not be clearer." There's little or no cost to the FDA for not approving a drug that might be safe, effective and clinically superior to other drugs for some patients but pose a risk for others. My question to FDA officials is: Should a drug be disapproved whenever it poses a health risk to some people but a benefit to others? To do so would eliminate most drugs, including aspirin, because all drugs pose a health risk to some people.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2007/05/30/fda_friend...

Should we in Wichita or Sedgwick County be forced to recycle?

Prices for commodities and goods represent the best available information about the worth of them -- that is, unless the government is manipulating prices. The prices people are willing to pay for recycled goods, therefore, tell us everything we need to know about their worth. These prices tell us that there isn't much worth in most recycled goods.

It's not that there aren't markets for recycled goods. About 75% of automobiles are recycled, and used cardboard is often recycled in commercial settings. That's because the price paid for these recycled items is high enough that, in the proper context, recycling can be profitable.

A household setting is different. Recycling of household goods, mostly newsprint, plastics, and glass, (aluminum cans being a possible exception) doesn't pay very well. In fact, it costs households to recycle. The prices that recyclers can get for these recycled goods doesn't even cover the cost of collecting them from households, as evidenced by the fact that in Wichita households must pay someone to pick up recyclables. People can deliver these items to recycling centers, but that involves significant cost to the household.

How much does recycling cost? Orange County in Florida spends roughly $3 million per year to collect recyclables, but sells them for only $56,000.

What about saving the environment through recycling? The contribution of household recycling towards this goal is not certain, once you look beyond the usual recycling propaganda and realize the role that prices play.

Running out of landfill space? If landfill space were truly scarce, landfill operators could charge high prices for trash disposal. But evidently, they don't.

Running out of raw materials? That's not happening. If raw materials were scarce, the price of recycled alternatives would increase. Instead, prices for most recycled goods are low and not increasing. We should be happy that raw materials are inexpensive and that manufacturing processes are efficient.

What this means is that household recycling doesn't pay. Instead, it costs, and costs a lot.

If recycling is voluntary, each person can exercise their own judgment as to the value of recycling versus other activities. With forced recycling, people have to give up activities that they value more than recycling to comply with the mandate. Additionally, we have to pay recycling fees or additional taxes to cover the costs of money-losing recycling efforts.

Then there's the recycling police. We have violent crimes that actually hurt people being committed daily. I think most people would rather have police focusing their attention on those crimes rather than inspecting our trash looking for the wayward aluminum can or newspaper.

This history lesson from Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network tells the story of what might have been for downtown Wichita, and shows how close Wichita came to losing a company very important to our local economy, even if they're not located downtown.

In the 1960’s the urban renewal redevelopment project that became Century II used eminent domain and forced a medium sized, private company in the petroleum business out of their office building and corporate headquarters on the south side of W. Douglas just east of the river.

This business was in transition with the founder handing off control to a young relative who had been living and working out-of-state. This firm’s two major business assets were outside of Kansas so the firm’s geographic ties to Wichita were not strong either. At that time, I’ve been told that this business had gross sales around $250 million a year and possessed their own multi-story office building downtown. That sales figure is understated and would be a lot more if measured in the inflated 2007 dollars.

Local leaders in Wichita had decided that they knew what was best for downtown and using the urban renewal redevelopment program’s eminent domain powers, acquired a large chunk of downtown (as well as many other parcels across this community -- see Wichita Business Journal’s most recent list of biggest local taxpayers that still prominently includes the City of Wichita).

The medium sized petroleum company left Wichita after losing their building. This company relocated a couple of miles north of the Wichita city limits back then (they were eventually annexed back into the city many years later) but could have easily relocated elsewhere. Conversely, imagine what downtown Wichita would be like if this firm had remained there. You may have guessed that I’m referring to Koch Industries and their 1,800 local employees.

The contrast between the statist Hillary Clinton and the libertarian Milton Friedman. Gathered by Thomas D. Kuiper.

The Free Market

"The unfettered free market has been the most radically destructive force in American life in the last generation."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton on C-Span in 1996 stating her troubles with the free market

"What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself."
-- Milton Friedman, Wall Street Journal, May 18, 1961

Social Security

"We can’t afford to have that money go to the private sector. The money has to go to the federal government because the federal government will spend that money better than the private sector will spend it."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton in a disagreement with a Republican congressman

"I have long been a critic of Social Security, basically because I believe that it is not the business of government to tell people what fraction of their incomes they should devote to providing for their own or someone else’s old age."
-- Milton Friedman, WSJ, March 15, 1988

Health Care

"I had a few ideas about health care, and I’ve learned a few lessons since then, but I haven’t given up the goal, and that’s why we kept working step-by-step to insure millions of children through the Children’s Health Insurance Program."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton at the 2000 Democratic Convention, still wanting socialized medicine in the United States

"It is taken for granted that workers should receive their pay partly in kind, in the form of medical care provided by the employer. How come? Why single out medical care? Surely food is no less essential to life than medical care. Why is it not at least as logical for workers to be required to buy their food at the company store as to be required to buy their medical care at the company store?"
-- Milton Friedman writes against Hillary’s health care plan; WSJ, Feb.13, 1993

Government Spending & Taxes

"Other developed countries…are more committed to social stability than we have been, and they tailor their economic policies to maintain it."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton writes her affinity for Europe’s cradle-to-grave welfare policies

"Cutting government spending and government intrusion in the economy will almost surely involve immediate gain for the many, short-term pain for the few, and long-term gain for all."
-- Milton Friedman, WSJ, June 15, 1995

Free Trade vs. Fair Trade

"Too many people have made too much money."
-- First Lady Hillary Clinton condemns the insurance industry, feeling it’s not fair that certain businesses are making ‘too much money’

"'Fair' is in the eye of the beholder; free is the verdict of the market. (The word 'free' is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with 'freedom.' The word 'fair' is not used in either of our founding documents.)"
-- Milton Friedman, WSJ, Mar. 7, 1996

Dan Mitchell summarizing John Fund:

....lobbyists visiting Capitol Hill are bound by House and Senate ethics rules that cap most individual gifts at $50 per elected official or staffer, with an annual limit of $100 per recipient from any single source. But local governments, public universities and Indian tribes are exempt from the limit, so they are able to shower members and their staffs with such goodies as luxury skybox tickets to basketball games and front-row concert tickets. Having members or their key aides attend such free events in the company of glad-handing university presidents and local government officials winds up costing taxpayers a pretty penny. Much of the explosive growth in earmarks has been directed to local governments and universities. ...Universities and colleges spent at least $75 million in 2005 on lobbying according to a study by USA Today. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that $2 billion in grants flowed into higher education in 2003. ...The same lobbying rules that apply to private-sector lobbyists should also apply to taxpayer-funded government lobbyists. ...Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff once told me that he built his lobbying business in such a way that all his major clients were Indian tribes and local governments, in part because he knew he could wine and dine power brokers on Capitol Hill without breaking any laws.

From "March Madness -- Public-sector lobbyists lavish gifts on congressmen and their staffers. The scandal is it's perfectly legal" located at www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009776

Here's why we should listen to the economist Walter E. Williams. From a column of January, 2007.

The kind of rules we should have are the kind that we'd make if our worst enemy were in charge. My mother created a mini-version of such a rule. Sometimes she would ask either me or my sister to evenly divide the last piece of cake or pie to share between us. More times than not, an argument ensued about the fairness of the division. Those arguments ended with Mom's rule: Whoever cuts the cake lets the other take the first piece. As if by magic or divine intervention, fairness emerged and arguments ended. No matter who did the cutting, there was an even division.

...

We have a set of rules that are known, neutral and intended to be durable. Those rules were created by our founders and embodied in the U.S. Constitution. Those rules have been weakened by a Congress of both parties that picks winners and losers in the game of life. The U.S. Supreme Court, which was intended to be a neutral referee, has forsaken that role and become a participant. All of this means we can expect a future of bitterly fought elections and enhanced conflict."

As reported in The Wichita Business Journal:

The response from the Wichita Historic Preservation Board was positive. The six members liked the design and thought the project could be good for downtown.

They still voted no.

So for the moment, a developer's plan for a downtown hotel and conference center is blocked by a law, the Kansas preservation statute. What is the problem with the proposed building? "[the problem] is that it incorporates too many materials and features inconsistent with the surrounding buildings. That includes glass, marble, stainless steel, redwood and balconies."

This design is judged as "too modern" to be compatible with the "overall historic appearance of downtown."

It is a sad day in Wichita when a law prevents an individual from making an investment in the improvement of his property, especially when private investment in downtown Wichita is desired and needed. This law needs to be repealed before it causes more harm.

Furthermore, it devalues private property rights when property owners or developers must subject themselves to the whims of groups such as the Wichita Historic Preservation Board. As John W. Sommer wrote in The Cato Journal:

With few exceptions, historic or landmark preservation illustrates the powerful force of cultural elites who impose their tastes on the landscape at the expense of the general public. City after city has been confronted by small groups of architectural aesthetes who are as highly organized as they are both righteous and wealthy. In city after city these groups have succeeded in stalling, or permanently freezing, the pace of physical and functional change. In the name of “heritage” or “culture” or “a livable city,” and invariably “in the public interest,” preservationists seek to legislate “charm” for others.

We would be much better off with out these two disruptive forces -- the Kansas preservation statute and the Wichita Historic Preservation Board -- acting against our economy and private property rights.

A Wichita businessman proposes building an arena that, while not as large as the downtown Wichita arena being built by Sedgwick County, would provide some competition to the government-owned arena.

Normally, private investment is welcomed. If you believe in limited government as I do, it is vastly preferred to government spending. But if you're a Sedgwick County Commissioner getting ready to spend some $200 million in sales tax collections on a government arena, it seems that competition from the private sector isn't welcome. As reported in The Wichita Eagle:

Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Dave Unruh said he would prefer Hartman [the Wichita businessman] not go "head to head" with the county. "I am definitely (in favor) of free enterprise and allowing folks to do whatever they think they can do to improve their own financial stature," Unruh said. "This, however, I think would present some competitive challenges to the downtown arena, and I prefer he not do it."

The absurdity in Commissioner Unruh's statement is eye-catching and revealing of his arrogance. He says, and I believe I am accurate in my interpretation, that free enterprise is good, unless it happens to provide a challenge to a government project!

Assistant Sedgwick County Manager Ron Holt is a little gentler in his criticism of the proposed private arena, remarking that "overall, it would not be in the best interest of the community."

Wichita and Kansas need private investment. When government officials make remarks like these, it a wonder that anyone would choose to invest here. Yet, people do invest here, and the results show the failures of government projects and government-subsidized partnerships. Consider, for example, the government-subsidized Waterwalk vs. the privately developed Waterfront. Consider that the government-owned Kansas Coliseum is not yet 30 years old, but, by most accounts, not suitable for continued use.

It's even worse when government is investing in projects of dubious value to the community at large, but is requiring everyone to pay for it. It is telling that in an article about the downtown arena, The Wichita Eagle looks to Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission president and chief executive Bob Hanson for a reaction. It tells how the downtown arena is a gift to special interests, Mr. Hanson being an especially vocal member of this special interest group that will benefit from a taxpayer-supplied arena.