Voice For Liberty

Author: Bob Weeks

  • Paying for tax cuts

    Commentary surrounding two recent tax cuts reveals the backwards thinking about taxes that is common.

    A New York Times editorial from May 11, 2006 asks this question: “Whose taxes will be raised in the future to pay for today’s tax giveaways?”

    A question like this reveals several prevalent lines of thinking: First, that the government has a legitimate claim on a large part of our incomes, and that if the government “gives” any of that claim back to us, it somehow has to be paid for. Second, it’s the people who “give” tax money to the government, not the government who “gives” it back to the people in the form of tax cuts. If the government reduces taxes, the government “gives” us nothing. It simply takes less of what is ours in the first place.

    This backwards thinking about taxes happens even close to home in Kansas. As reported by David Klepper in the May 12, 2006 Wichita Eagle: “They [Kansas lawmakers who supported the cuts] consider the cuts a wise, $128 million investment to spur new investment by business, new jobs, more economic activity and, consequently, higher tax receipts.”

    Further in the same article: “Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, who first proposed the business machinery tax cut, agreed. ‘We’re not giving away money for the sake of giving it away,’ she said. ‘I’m hoping that the economic growth will actually help fund the school plan that we just passed.’” (emphasis added)

    It is quite revealing to hear the Governor of Kansas equate letting people keep more of the money they earned with the state “giving it away.” Furthermore, the motives of the politicians are revealed: they are “investing” in tax cuts in the hope that the state will collect even more tax money in the future. What their remarks really reveal is that high taxes are a drag on our economy.

    There is one thing the New York Times editorial got right: “Neither Congress nor the public has the stomach to slash government programs anywhere near enough to bring spending in line with revenues.” That is the heart of the problem. Government at all levels spends too much, crowding out private initiative. Government at all levels should cut both taxes and spending.

  • No Child Left Behind Leaving Many Behind

    Recently an Associated Press article reported how the test scores of some two million children aren’t being counted, due to a loophole in the No Child Left Behind Act. (See ‘No Child’ loophole misses millions of scores at CNN, April 18, 2006.) The Wall Street Journal (“No Child Left Behind” April 29, 2006) editorializes on this as follows:

    … Last month we reported that parents and children in failing schools nationwide aren’t being notified of their school-choice transfer and tutoring options, even though notification is a requirement under NCLB. The news that [Secretary of Education] Ms. Spellings is also letting states slide on even reporting the math and reading test scores of minorities is especially disturbing because accountability is the heart of the federal law.

    NCLB makes allowances for schools that have racial groups too small to be statistically significant. But states have been abusing their freedom under the law to determine when a group is too small to count. And Washington is letting them get away with it. According to the AP, nearly two dozen states have successfully petitioned the Education Department “for exemptions to exclude larger numbers of students in racial categories.” Today about one in 14 test scores overall go uncounted. Minorities, whose test scores on average lag those of white students, are seven times as likely to have their test results ignored. That’s an odd way to enforce a law called No Child Left Behind.

    Has Kansas asked for exemptions from these reporting requirements? I spoke to an official at the Kansas Department of Education, and it appears that Kansas is not asking for exemptions like the ones reported above. That’s good news.

    But Kansas school officials, like those in nearly every other state, continue to paint a prettier picture than the actual reality. This article Every State Left Behind explains how state education officials report student proficiency rates far in excess of what the National Assessment of Educational Progress test reveals.

    The public education establishment tells us they are willing to be held accountable. As it turns out, being held accountable to a government agency may not mean very much.

    There is a simple way to hold public schools accountable to those who matter most: simply give parents meaningful school choice. Open public schools to market competition. Give parents, through vouchers, meaningful opportunities to choose schools for their children.

    With all the attention paid to schools this year in Kansas government, with all the new money about to be spent, accountability is still lacking. The education establishment insists on retaining their government-sponsored monopoly on education spending. In a few years when the impact of the increased education spending in Kansas is assessed — if we are able to get an honest evaluation — we should not be surprised to find that no progress has been made.

  • Judicial Scandal Grows

    Judicial Scandal Grows As $3 Billion Public School Spending Bill Advances
    By Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network, www.kansastaxpayers.com

    The Kansas legislature’s school spending spree is racing the latest developments in the judicial-legislative misconduct scandal over school finance in Kansas. The outcome of this race could influence the size of the spending spree going on at the Kansas statehouse right now. The latest revelations on the school finance scandal brings the governor into the story. Senate President Steve Morris has now informed at least some in the statehouse press that he told the governor about his meeting with Supreme Court Justice Nuss and Senator Pete Brungardt.

    Morris cannot recall exactly when he spoke to the governor and how much of the details of his luncheon meeting with Nuss he relayed to her. What makes this story compelling is not only the governor’s involvement, that has been percolating at the fringes of this story ever since she told legislative leaders last summer that the court was going to come down hard on them the next day–and then the court did so but as another vivid reminder of the culture of arrogance among this state’s bipartisan, self described “moderate” leadership in this state.

    The governor’s ties to the Supreme Court through her former chief of staff Joyce Allegrucci who is married to long time Supreme Court Justice Donald Allegrucci is obvious for anyone who has any common sense. Governor Sebelius’ knowledge about the outcome of the court’s most recent edict in this case frustrated legislative leaders like house speaker Doug Mays and pro-tem speaker Ray Merrick last summer.

    When the governor expressed her “outrage” over the revelation of the Nuss-Morris-Brungardt school finance luncheon it now appears that she was probably more upset about it being revealed to the public than about the contents of the meeting. She already knew about the meeting from her buddy, the nominally GOP senate president Morris.

    Senate Minority Leader Tony Hensley now admits that he knew about the meeting in sometime shortly after the meeting was held in March. Hensley did not see a problem with this meeting and this view demonstrates the culture of arrogance that exists in Kansas government. If Hensley did not see it as a problem, I’m sure that he was happy to share his knowledge with legislative friends who share his support, as a public school teacher/KNEA member, with an additional $3 billion spending spree. This is going to total $6,650 per pupil or $133,000 per classroom (assuming 20 kids per class) in new spending over these five years.

    What is compelling today about this latest revelation is being connected to the timeline of events. March 1 is the luncheon meeting between the court and legislative leaders. March 2, a Thursday, the senate leadership plan (the four main senate leaders including two attorneys, senators Morris, D.Schmidt, Hensley, Vratil–with Schmidt and Vratil being the lawyers) for spending billions (SB 584, the senate leadership plan has a five year price tag beginning with the increased spending from last summer of $3.2216 billion) through the 2009-10 fiscal year is made public! Is that just a coincidence??? That’s the Kool-Aid the “moderate” i.e. Leftist leadership in this state’s judicial/executive/legislative branch wants you to believe.

    A day after the Nuss revelation appeared, and only about 10 days ago, the Chief Justice Kay McFarland went to a lunch with the powerful chair of the senate’s spending, Ways and Means Committee, Senator Dwayne Umbarger. Supposedly nothing more controversial than the weather, families, and judicial budgets were discussed then according to Umbarger, but the following week Umbarger’s got the latest school spending spending plan for his fellow senators to consider. Another coincidence … yeah … sure.

    Another revelation is the open records requests that are being made and now denied. The Kansas Supreme Court is refusing to release any information from documents and email being sought by legislators who are upset at this scandal. Similar open record requests are also being made to the governor’s office concerning communications between the Sebelius administration and the KS Supreme Court too.

    Stay tuned on the request to the governor’s office because the exemption the court is using to stonewall any requests does not extend to the executive branch. The culture of arrogance is also being exposed as the court refuses to provide anything to the public.

    Legislatively, the Kansas house is taking up the latest school spending plan later today (May 1). Their original version was actually about $40 million a year more expensive than the senate’s propsal (HB 2986). The special house school finance committee’s latest school spending proposal is slightly smaller than the senate plan but the price tag is still approaching $3 billion over five years. The out year funding sources for either the house and senate plans are not visible–these folks are acting like they are congressman who can get the federal reserve to cover for them. If state revenues continue to grow at 10 percent or more a year and the rest of the state’s budget is largely frozen, they might be able to thread this fiscal needle between now and 2010, but a lot of unusual events would need to occur for this to happen.

    Just in case this needle is not threaded, then the governor wants to try and use this legislation as a lever to try and get gambling expansion revisited too. Governor Sebelius has close ties to ex-Wichitan and now-Nevadan Phil Ruffin who owns the Wichita Greyhound Park and Kansas could still become the first state to have state “owned and operated” casinos created under a previous piece of legislating from the bench by the Kansas Supreme Court that ruled that the 1986 vote on creating the state lottery also meant that five “state owned and operated casinos” would be permissible under their interpretation of the infinitely flexible Kansas Constitution. No one among the casino advocates has come up with a way for gambling expansion to generate more than about 30% of this $3 billion proposed spending spree.

    The stage is being set for a tax hike similar to the governor’s 2004 property, income, and sales hike that was backed by her legislative allies like senators Hensley and Morris and the rest of the spend and tax crowd in Topeka. Hensley has his own plan for raising income and sales taxes too. Liberals in both parties have a variety of tax plans that will appear shortly after the inconvenience of this year’s gubernatorial and house elections are behind us.

    A $3 billion public school spending spree is ultimately going to be a fiscal boat anchor thrown into the hands of the Kansas economy that is struggling to stay afloat right now. This state’s economy is already performing well below the national average in terms of productivity, population growth, and average income per Kansan. This new fiscal burden will destroy this state’s economy leaving a growing percentage of tax consumers as the foundation for Kansas’ economic future. This is going to be grim as we become the next New York or Ohio on the prairie. The success of suing for more spending is going to continue as the school finance spending plan will not significantly diminish the variances in state funding for the mid-sized school districts led by Salina and Dodge City public schools that started this case with their extra tax dollars. That means we’ll get another lawsuit filed soon and this fiscal litigation game will begin again.

    God help Kansas because the power establishment in Topeka is fiscally destroying this state while demonstrating a culture of arrogance that is a national model for what should NOT be done. Kansas struggles economically but the new spending commitments being made today will harm this state’s economy for the next generation. This is similar to the harm Governor Sebelius’ father imposed when John Gilligan was governor of Ohio for four years in the early 1970’s. Like father, like daughter. As Ohio went, so goes Kansas now.

    The irony is that the disastrous school spending in Kansas City, Missouri under earlier judicial activism in the 1980’s, albeit in the federal courts, proved disastrous in terms of student achievement and performance back then. Now Kansas is repeating this mistake. The mess in Kansas City is being exported statewide to Kansas. While there was plenty of corruption in Kansas City back in the old Pendergast days there was never a judicial scandal that cost the people billions to pay for on a statewide basis.

  • Summary of blogging on judicial ethics in Kansas

    News accounts report that there will be an investigation into the lunch that Kansas Supreme Court Justice Lawton Nuss shared with legislators. If it is the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications that performs this investigation, I doubt we will see much happen.

    Last year, I along with Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network filed complaints with this commission against Justices Allegrucci and Nuss. I thought we made compelling cases, but the commission disagreed. (You may read my complaints and commentary in the links referred to below.) There was very little reporting in Kansas news media. Only lately has Kansas news media sensed that something might be wrong.

    The Kansas Meadowlark has uncovered a Salina Journal article published on October 22, 2002, that tells how, in 2002, Justice Nuss recused himself from the school finance case, as he had represented the Salina school district in the past. This is the very issue that Karl and I placed before the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications. See www.saljournal.com/blogs/?p=667. Meadowlark also has some good ideas here: www.kansasmeadowlark.com/2006/04-21.htm.

    Links to Voice For Liberty in Wichita articles:

    Ethics Require Recusal in School Finance Lawsuit

    The Ethics Case Against Justice Donald L. Allegrucci

    The Wrong Canon; The Wrong Allegrucci

    The Ethics Case Against Justice Lawton R. Nuss

    Judicial Abuse Authorized in Kansas

    Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, or, Judicial-Legislative Dinners Continue in the Age of Montoy

    Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    The April 20, 2006 newspapers contain articles about the member of the Kansas Supreme Court, Lawton Nuss, belatedly recusing himself following the revelation that he had lunched with at least two legislators March 1 and improperly discussed the school finance lawsuit. I keep hearing reports of possibly at least one more legislator (Senate President Morris and Sen. Brungardt are the two who have been publicly identified as meeting with Nuss) also attending this luncheon meeting while discussing the continuing and apparently perpetual Montoy school finance lawsuit.

    KTN is now in a position to reveal that Kay McFarland, the court’s chief had lunch yesterday with the chair of the senate’s powerful spending committee, Ways and Means chairman, Sen. Dwayne Umbarger.

    Now I don’t know if anyone else from the court or the legislature joined Dwayne and Kay. I’m sure a fascinating discussion was held about the wonderful spring weather we’ve been having with only a slight diversion to discussion of something that would justify the taxpayers picking up the luncheon costs…..who picked up the tab and paid? Or was it a dutch treat? Do they dine together regularly or was this the very first time? My mind is filled with so many questions in the age of perpetual litigation and judicial usurpation. However, I am just a lowly taxpayer with a penchant for posting and too many bad experiences following closed door meetings where the public is banned and often fiscally damned.

    The luncheon discussion must have been over “judicial budgets” or something like that. School finance would be a topic taboo. In the age of perpetual school finance edicts heralding the age of Montoy, that is another meal that is hard for many hard working Kansas taxpayers to swallow. Taxpayers pay for the six figure judicial salaries, the expense accounts plus a wide assortment of other expensive benefits, and most importantly, the odious and outrageous spending edicts coming from this activist court.

    Let me remind the readers of this post that this is not the first time that there have been indications of irregular communications occurring between the court and elected officials in this case. House speaker Doug Mays has publicly expressed his frustration over the knowledge that Governor Sebelius had about the court’s, at that time unreleased edict, that she expressed in a legislative leadership meeting in the governor’s office during the special session last summer. At that time the governor’s chief of staff was Joyce Allegrucci. Ms. Allegrucci is the wife of another Supreme Court member, one of the five Democrat members of this court, Don Allegrucci. Since April, 2005 the governor has been publicly backing the position that Kansas public school spending is inadequate and following the court’s $284 million spending hike edict last year.

    When it comes to the rule of law in Kansas, this is a mandate applying only to the peasants and peons who get to pay the tab for our statehouse masters. When I use the word “statehouse” it includes the appointed masters operating out of the KS “Judicial” Center too.

    Last year I filed two ethics complaints against Nuss and Allegrucci that were dismissed by the court’s “ethics” panel after closed door hearings that no one except the panel itself could attend. It now is apparent that the complaints against Nuss that were filed by myself and a separate complaint filed by Bob Weeks were valid. The court’s self appointed committee meeting rejected our complaints during their closed door meetings last year. Yesterday’s recussal is a vindication of a sort but totally inadequate for providing an explanation of what is going on in the perpetual school finance imbroglio created by the Kansas Supreme Court continuing edicts in Montoy. The public and press must remember that the Kansas Supreme Court has issued no decision that is appealable to a court with real ethics!

    Last year the court finally said that the Kansas Constitution requires $285 million in additional school spending in 2005 (where does it say that and how does this amount change yearly?) and for this year the amount is … drum roll please … don’t forget — we’ve got the $289 million in additional revenue estimates to spend with the latest revenue forecast … do the judges get their pay raise too? … what part of Article six, section 6 sets specific school expenditure figures? … oh, what the hell, who are we lunching with tomorrow? … let’s announce it … after lunch!

    An aside for those who care about the future of Kansas: Yesterday the U.S. Census issued their latest report from 2000-2004 on population growth trends and Kansas came in a dismal 46th out of the 50 states in terms of population growth, “average annual rates of net domestic migration,” see figure 2 on page 4 of this report. We did beat New York that scored 50th.

    Actually, “population growth” is a misnomer. It’s population loss in the case of Kansas. This report is the most recent listed on the U.S. Census Department’s web site.

    Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network
    www.kansastaxpayers.com

  • The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

    The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
    Thomas L. Friedman
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

    This interesting book explains in detail what many people already know: that advances in technology — and in politics to some degree — have made the world a smaller place. Not only have manufacturing jobs been moved overseas, but white-collar jobs such as accountant, computer programmer, radiologist, and many others can be done from anywhere in the world. Even a McDonald’s restaurant is not immune. At a McDonald’s drive-through in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the person you speak to when ordering is not present in the restaurant you’re visiting. Instead, the person you’re speaking to is in Colorado, a long way from Missouri. But when considering telecommunications India, as a practical matter, is no farther away.

    There are some who don’t like this globalization, and they urge the restriction of trade in the name of protecting American jobs. Mr. Friedman believes, however, as I do, in the free-trade theory of competitive advantage developed by David Ricardo. This holds that the wealth of everyone is increased if each nation specializes in that which it possesses comparative advantage, and trades with other nations for other things.

    The problem is that the wealth is not spread equally. Some people are hurt when their jobs are outsourced overseas. While the wealth of America and India or China as a whole increases, some people lose. We, both as a nation and as individuals, need to be adaptable and realize that the jobs we trained for in school may not be around forever. Speaking from personal experience, my career as a software engineer is one that is often mentioned as susceptible to outsourcing.

    Although the issues dealt with in the book are mostly national and international, there is one in particular that is local. Mr. Friedman lays out the problems with American K-12 education, particularly education in science and math. And while America excels in the teaching of science and engineering at universities and graduate schools, that will start to change as more foreign scientists and engineers stay in their home countries.

    This problem with education is a local issue, as that is where the primary control over schools rests. We can either continue with the steady downhill slide of our schools (as compared with the rest of the world), or we can do something to change their course. If you believe that more spending by the state of Kansas will do the job, I hope for the sake of our nation’s children that you are correct. But we have spent more and more on schools only to see them worsen. It is time for Kansas to allow freedom and competition to work in schools.

    While increased global competition may worry some, it holds much promise to others. Mr. Friedman traces the complex interaction of many companies, located in many countries, that was necessary to build the Dell notebook computer he recently ordered. This complex supply chain comprises what Mr. Friedman calls “The Dell Theory of Conflict Resolution, the essence of which is that the advent and spread of just-in-time global supply chains in the flat world are an even greater restraint on geopolitical adventurism than the more general rising standard of living that McDonald’s symbolized.” (The reference to McDonald’s is from the “Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention” advanced in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, which held that no two countries which both had McDonald’s had gone to war with each other.) As countries become more intertwined, as our livelihoods and investments become dependent on worldwide cooperation, the risk of war declines. That, along with the increased wealth that free trade brings, is good news for everyone.

  • Kansas Judiciary Gets National Criticism

    Kansas Judiciary Gets National Criticism
    Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    The school finance litigation began in the 1980’s in Kansas and has continued and expanded in the 21st Century. The first lawsuit was tragic, but now Kansas is becoming a judicial joke, albeit a very expensive demonstration of judicial activism and contempt for the democratic principles that are the foundation for not only this state, but for this republic.

    Kansas is now getting negative national attention created by the judicial activism coming from the Kansas Supreme Court. Kansas is not alone in judicial activism but the attention focused upon the Sunflower state by the Wall Street Journal April 8, 2006 is a national recognition of a fundamental problem facing Kansas. The negative judicial impact is already hurting Kansas firms as business costs and risks grow. Any out-of-state firm looking to relocate into this region won’t come anywhere near us.

    Here, the judges are setting budgets and legislatures have been relegated to an elected advisory board. Litigious school district lawyers publicly whine about “inadequate school funding” despite an increase of over $650 per pupil last year alone. Governor Sebelius and her liberal legislative allies in both parties want this spending to be doubled again to a total of roughly $2,000 more per pupil per year. That would be an additional $40,000 per twenty student classroom in Kansas if the legislature approves this spending when they return to Topeka April 26.

    When this gubernatorial backed spending spree was approved in the Kansas house all 42 Democrats joined 22 liberal Republicans led by Garden City lawyer, Representative Ward Loyd in narrowly passing this bill on a 64-to-61 vote in March. In a spasm of caution, the senate deadlocked and passed nothing so far this year.

    Now New York Law School professors Ross Sandler and David Schoenbrod bluntly stated in the Wall Street Journal, ” …courts have no power to force a state legislature to appropriate money.” Most people assume that the legislature must cough up the cash because courts have the power of contempt, which allows them to punish those who disobey their orders. In the school case, however, the courts can’t punish anyone. State legislators are not defendants in this case, and even if they were, they can’t be pushed because they are immune from suit. The state’s treasury is immune because the court lacks authority to appropriate more funds and can’t fine the state for the legislature’s unwillingness to do so.

    These professors go on to warn that courts have tried to close schools until the legislature responded to the court’s demands. In some cases the threat succeeds. They said, “…when the Kansas court raised the question of whether it should close the schools, the threat was enough to pry more money from the legislature.” This leads to an outrageous situation, “When courts claim that they have power to make legislatures spend more to vindicate a constitutional right to basic education, they tamper with a basic tenet of our democracy — no taxation without representation.”

    The judicial activists among Kansas lawyers, the Kansas Bar, the judicial nominating and “ethics” committees meeting behind closed doors, and the Kansas judges from the liberal Terry Bullock to the Democrat dominated, activist Kansas Supreme Court control the interpretation of Kansas state law. Democratic principles are no match for Democrat and liberal judges. What the judges cannot control are the consequences from this usurpation of elected officials’ power by this ascendant judicial oligarchy.

    The Wall Street Journal’s editorial clearly indicates that businesses are entering a risky legal environment once they step into Kansas. The word is out. Other recent Alice in Wonderland rulings, like the Kansas Supreme Court’s eminent domain edict, add to the problems and risks of conducting business in this state. As the court grabs spending power and weakens property rights this state is being economically as well as politically damaged by judicial activism.

    The bizarre nature of the Kansas school finance case is increased by several facts. First, the legislature was never even a defendant in the school finance lawsuit, the state school board was. The Kansas Supreme Court denied the legislators’ right to appear before the court because of this fact, but then the appointed judges on this court turned around and issued a ruling against the elected legislators.

    Second, the other states pursuing these public school spending cases refuse to manufacture some specious dollar amount to be constitutionally authorized like Kansas. The Texas Supreme Court specifically rejected this claim. In New York, their highest court said in its March, 2006 ruling that it had, “neither the authority, nor the ability, nor the will, to micromanage education financing.”

    Dissenting judges in this case warned that the New York school finance lawsuit will create endless litigation and perpetual legal second-guessing by their courts. That description of the legal environment sounds like Kansas beginning with Judge Bullock’s infamous Mock decision in 1992.

    Who supported this school finance lawsuit in New York? Besides the usual school spending lobbies there were the two “expert” professors from New York whose work is the foundation for the Kansas Legislative Post Audit report issued last January. These are Syracuse University professors and left wing school spending advocates William Duncombe and John Yinger.

    There are many lessons for the Kansas citizens paying these tax bills to fund this legal circus. Taxpayers are funding both sides of this expensive, multi-million dollar lawsuit. Kansas ranks low in the percentage of tax dollars that gets into classrooms, but there is unlimited tax funds for lawsuits, statehouse school district lobbyists, raising top administrators’ salaries, and despite all the spending there are lax fiscal controls. Lax controls have created several recent public school financial scandals that included, in one case, shipping over $500,000 in school district tax funds to a bunch of crooks in Kazakstan. This financial scandal indicates that money is the excuse, not the problem, for Kansas public schools.

  • Consider carefully all costs of gambling in Wichita

    Writing from Miami, Florida

    In a free society dedicated to personal liberty, people should be able to gamble. But that’s not what we have, as in a free society dedicated to personal liberty, people wouldn’t be taxed to pay for the problems that others cause in the pursuit of their happiness.

    How does this relate to the issue of casino gambling in Wichita and Kansas?

    There is a document titled “Economic & Social Impact Anlaysis [sic] For A Proposed Casino & Hotel” created by GVA Marquette Advisors for the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation and the Greater Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau, dated April 2004. This document presents a lot of information about the benefits and the costs of gambling in the Wichita area. One of their presentations of data concludes that the average cost per pathological gambler is $13,586 per year. Quoting from the study in the section titled Social Impact VII-9:

    Most studies conclude that nationally between 1.0 and 1.5 percent of adults are susceptible to becoming a pathological gambler. Applying this statistic to the 521,000 adults projected to live within 50 miles of Wichita in 2008, the community could eventually have between 5,200 and 7,800 pathological gamblers. At a cost of $13,586 in social costs for each, the annual burden on the community could range between $71 and $106 million.

    If all we had to do was to pay that amount each year in money that would be bad enough. But the components of the cost of pathological gamblers include, according to the same study, increased crime and family costs. In other words, people are hurt, physically and emotionally, by pathological gamblers. Often the people who are harmed are those who have no option to leave the gambler, such as children.

    Quoting again from the study: “While this community social burden could be significant, its quantified estimate is still surpassed by the positive economic impacts measured in this study.” The authors are saying that the amount of money the casino generates will more than pay for the increased social costs. While it is likely true that the amount of money the casino generates is greater than the increased social costs, whether this analysis makes sense depends on what you mean by “generate.”

    The largest components of the positive economic impacts are employee wages, additional earnings in the county, and state casino revenue share, along with some minor elements. Together these total $142 million, which is, as the authors point out, larger than the projected costs shown above. But this analysis is flawed. It assumes that salaries paid to employees somehow compensate for increased social costs. Employee wages don’t go towards paying the costs of treating pathological gamblers, as employees probably want to spend their wages on other things. Furthermore, the state casino revenue share is supposed to go towards schools. It is a huge mistake to treat employee wages as compensating for increased social costs.

    The absurdity mounts as we realize that gambling is promoted by none other than Governor Kathleen Sebelius (and many others) as a way to raise money for schools. Often the figure quoted for the amount of money gambling would generate for the state is $150 million per year. But here is a study concluding that the monetary costs to the Wichita area alone would be a large fraction of that, and when you add the human misery, it just doesn’t make sense to fund schools with revenue from gambling.

  • Senate spending spree blows roof off Kansas capitol

    Thank you to Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network, for this fine article containing information we don’t see in our state’s newspapers.

    Why is information like this important to our liberty? It’s because much of what our state spends consists of simply taking the property of one person and giving it to someone else. Add to that the fact that much of this spending is on public schools, that our government leaders firmly refuse to allow us choice in schools (vouchers), this spending (and resultant taxation) amounts to a huge assault on liberty, our freedoms, and our wealth.

    Senate spending spree blows roof off Kansas capitol
    March 30, 2006 @ 11:30 AM

    The government school spending spree is erupting in the Kansas senate today. The senate took up the horrific house passed HB 2986 this morning. Over three years Sen. Karin Brownlee said this bill would cost a total of $1.38 billion.

    Two amendments to lower the spending increases failed. The first would have limited spending growth to $670 million failed on a 17-to-20 vote with three legislators showing their profile in courage and passing! Then the original house spending plan that would raise school spending over $1 billion over three years was taken up and failed 17-to-23.

    Once again unified Democrats and their big spending GOP allies headed up by school district attorney Sen. John Vratil and Wichita school district specialist Sen. Jean Schodorf (they are vice chair and chair of the education committees, does anyone see a special interest there?) easily defeated these slightly smaller spending bills with the votes of their liberal allies.

    Sen. Karin Brownlee warned the senate that the house passed H 2986 would “…spend the roof off the dome…,” if this passed. So far, the smallest spending increase amendment to this bill came from Sen. Jim Barnett who had a four-year spending hike plan. Barnett’s proposal did not receive a single Democrat vote and the most “moderate,” ie. liberal Republicans voted against it: Allen, Brungardt, Emler, Morris, Reitz, D. Schmidt, V. Schmidt, Teichman, Umbarger, Vratil, & Wysong. The three passing were McGinn and two Democrats: Haley and Lee.

    Barnett warned the senate that continuing the spending spree that began in the 2005 regular legislative session and was compounded by the court mandated special session was going to lead this state into major financial mess. He was not alone in these concerns. He was joined by a majority of senate Republicans including excellent comments from senators Brownlee and Wagle.

    Sen. Les Donovan joined warned the senate that there are, “… built in (spending) escalators and they are not going away,” and that the cumulative impact is to put the state in a $600 million fiscal hole two years from now.

    The left wing and all too bipartisan senate leaders on both sides of the aisle Steve Morris, Tony Hensley, Derek Schmidt, and John Vratil do not care. As I write this, the debate continues and more amendments are being offered. The sausage mill continues to grind.

    From this taxpayer advocate’s perspective it is hard to see who is more irresponsible: the usurping Kansas Supreme Court that created the fiscal environment with the lawsuit that continues to fester over the entire state, Governor Sebelius who proposes nothing but controls through her legislative leadership allies Morris/Hensley everything, or left-wing Republicans and Democrats in the legislature. The house plan was increased with the Loyd-McKinney amendment but a more accurate name for this spending spree bill would begin with Governor Sebelius, add the four senate leaders, and then the two house members: Loyd/McKinney. Then the seven members of the black robed legislature/Supreme Court’s names should be included too. All these folks’ fingerprints dominate this spending spree bill.

    The scuttlebutt among some lobbyists is that there aren’t 21 votes in the senate to adopt any school finance bill. I don’t buy it. It looks like there are 21 votes to go on a spending spree that when fully implemented will place this state in such a deep financial hole that it will be decades before Kansans will see any sunlight. This is what Governor Sebelius’ father did when he was governor in Ohio for one term in the 1970’s and created that state’s debilitating income tax. Its deja vu all over again.

    The big lie is that gambling is a fiscal solution. It is only a solution if you think that the $323 million of spending from 2005 when combined with $660 million in additional spending (and assuming that the state doesn’t increase spending anywhere else, fat chance) can be funded by the gambling proponents most optimistic guess of $200 million in new money (that a gross not net figure). I guess this is called “Government Math.” Even an increase in state revenues of a couple of hundred million this year will not balance this spending spree.

    The government school establishment does not know how to spend this money fast enough. Full day kindergarten is already becoming universal statewide. Then the school districts will begin to expand their pre-kindergarten programs. They still will have truckloads of cash to spend.

    The size of the spending spree is demonstrated by the 2005-06 increase that if nothing were added, would increase state spending per pupil by $725 per FTE pupil statewide. That’s almost chump change when the spending in HB 2986 is added to the total. That should add roughly $1,500 more per pupil and assumes that local and federal spending is not increased—which is highly unlikely. That would take average spending from about $10,000 per pupil per year (or $200,000 for a classroom with 20 kids in it) to $12,000 per pupil (or $240,000 per classroom) a year.

    The legislature has been warned that financing HB 2986 would require draconian hikes in any one of the state’s major revenue sources: 22% hike in state personal income tax rates (taking us close to a max rate of 8 percent), more than doubling by over 21 mills in the statewide property tax, or at least a 38% hike in the state sales tax rate. What would be most likely is a combination of all three and perhaps adding some other excise tax hikes to the mix.

    Kansas’ already obscenely high tax rates would be made even higher. The departure of businesses and productive people will grow. The governor has a key supporter, Phil Ruffin, who is already a billionaire according to Forbes Magazine’s billionaire issue. To help fund this spending spree with slots/casino’s at his racetracks he would be able to move a good ways up the Forbes list into the multiple billionaire category. Forbes reports that Ruffin lives in Nevada where the sales tax is a fraction of Kansas; there is no statewide property or personal income taxes.

    The irony is that a large chunk of this new spending will not be used to raise the salaries of Kansas’ best public school teachers. The government school spending lobbies plan is to expand the number of employees (see the Augenblick and Myer report that is the basis for the court’s school finance edicts).

    This is a political play for more power. More employees means more union dues and that means more political power. Ultimately, the state grows and dependency upon government will grow. Kansas union leaders will soon be getting the same mid-six figure pay that national union heads like the National Education Association currently enjoy.

    This spending hike is a negative productivity plan since it will take more people to perform the same schooling that has occurred in the past. Don’t get me wrong; school employees will certainly get paid more. Superintendents will be able to trade in their Jaguars for Rolls-Royces (this is not hyperbole, there already is a superintendent driving her Jag). If teachers get 10 percent hikes principals will get a bigger percentage as will their bosses. More staff will be needed. Kansas will follow the build the government school bureaucracy model.

    If the Kansas City (MO) school lawsuit experience in the 1980’s was a tragedy that cost taxpayers a couple of billion the school spending debacle in 2006 should be called a farce. Except Kansas is larger so it will be a lot more expensive. All additional efforts to provide more performance and school accountability for state spending were removed on the house floor and the efforts to re-insert these provisions on the senate floor were terminated by the liberal senators.

    Since Kansas is already spending a higher percentage of its state budget for the public school establishment, the idea that taxpayers are short-changing any public school is absurd. Over 50 percent of the state’s $5.2 billion plus Gen. Fund budget already goes for public schools. When colleges are added in the figure is now approaching 70 percent. This new spending is likely to make the former figure close to 60 percent and the latter percentage around 75 percent.

    Since the efforts to stop the school finance lawsuits have largely been sidetracked in the legislature the future for Kansas enterprise is high in uncertainty, increasing risk, and more automatic tax hikes. There are enough state reserves due to the 2003 Bush tax cuts that have helped grow state revenues so that no tax hike (besides the automatic property tax appraisal/income tax inflation) will be necessary in this election year of 2006 but wait till after November.

    The property appraisal notices went out this month and Kansas property owners will be paying large increases. Again. This is now an annual event. One mill of the statewide property tax has now grown to over $30 million per year. In the 1990’s this figure was in the just over half this amount.

    None of the statewide property tax collections for schools show up in the state’s official revenue figures. I’ll let you do the math and multiply the $30 million by the 21.5 mill statewide mill levy and add this to a 2007 state budget that will soon be pushing $6 billion for the General Fund and blow by $12 billion for the All Funds budget (Medicaid costs are soaring at double digit rates too). In 2002 the state budget reached $10 billion for the first time.

    The fiscal decline of Kansas will lead to an overall decline for this state. We are a spending model for the rest of country: watch Kansas and do the opposite. Please feel free to forward this to anyone with an interest in the fiscal health of this state.

  • A Return to republican (small “r”) government

    Writing from Miami, Florida

    Would you rather live in a republic or a democracy?

    In an article by the economist Walter E. Williams (Are we a republic or a democracy?) we discover the difference between a republic and a democracy:

    So what’s the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, “You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.” Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.

    In recognition that it’s Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties, the framers used negative phrases against Congress throughout the Constitution such as: shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and shall not be violated, nor be denied. In a republican form of government, there is rule of law. All citizens, including government officials, are accountable to the same laws. Government power is limited and decentralized through a system of checks and balances. Government intervenes in civil society to protect its citizens against force and fraud but does not intervene in the cases of peaceable, voluntary exchange.

    Contrast the framers’ vision of a republic with that of a democracy. In a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. As in a monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent power. The restraint is upon the individual instead of government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government.

    I suppose that if you happen to hold the same beliefs as the majority in a democracy, you’re in a good position — unless you want to let others believe and live differently.

    Another good article by Dr. Williams on this subject is How to create conflict.