Voice For Liberty

Author: Guest Author

  • In Wichita, occupiers make presence known at legislative meeting

    At this week’s meeting of the South-Central Kansas Legislative Delegation, the “occupy” crowd — those inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests — made its presence known as members arrived early to sign up to speak. Below, Paul Soutar of Kansas Watchdog reports on the topics that were important to speakers at the meeting. Refreshingly, the “occupy” supporters followed established procedure and signed up to speak. It has been the practice of various “occupy” groups — even in Wichita — to disrupt events, demanding their first amendment rights to speak, often using the “mic check” method of communication.

    Legislative Forum Foretells Challenging 2012 Lawmaking Session

    By Paul Soutar of Kansas Watchdog, a project of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

    Comments from 53 speakers at a forum in Wichita signal a busy and contentious legislative session is just ahead. About 200 showed up for the South-central Kansas Legislative Forum at the Sedgwick County Courthouse Tuesday night.

    A total of 22 state senators and representatives attended, most staying through the three hours of comments from constituents that highlighted a deep divide between fiscal conservatives and proponents of bigger government.

    Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, chaired the meeting and set strict time limits on speakers. Legislators generally did not respond to comments or occasional barbs from speakers.

    American Legislative Exchange Council

    The most common theme addressed by speakers was the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council in state policy making. Detractors at Tuesday’s forum complained about undue corporate influence in passing legislation that favors their interests.

    ALEC’s website says its mission is, “to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty, through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector, the federal government, and general public.”

    Several speakers opposing ALEC identified themselves as participants or supporters of Occupy Wall Street protests.

    A smaller number of speakers pointed out the role of business in creating jobs. Bob Weeks, who blogs at Wichita’s Voice for Liberty, reminded legislators of ALEC’s Rich States, Poor States report which shows Kansas is becoming less business friendly as surrounding states improve their tax climate.

    Boeing Aircraft Company officials announced today it would cease operations in Wichita by the end of 2013. The move will eliminate about 2,000 jobs from the local economy.

    According to Boeing employees present at the announcement, one reason cited for the decision was higher operating costs in Kansas. Some Boeing work, including aircraft modification and work on Air Force One, will move to San Antonio, Texas, where corporate tax rates are low and there is no individual income tax.

    Foster care

    Several speakers addressed ongoing concerns about child protection officials removing children unnecessarily from homes. Kansas and Sedgwick County are among the nation’s worst performers in reuniting children with their families.

    Marlene Jones, an activist against abuses in child protection and foster care, complained that legislators have not followed through on last year’s promise to create a committee to look into the issue.

    Persistent reports of abuses in the foster care and legal system have been difficult to investigate because privacy law protects much of the information. Glen Burdue gave legislators a list of data that could be collected and investigated to evaluate allegations.

    Gaming

    Jeff Brazill, who used to call the races at Wichita Greyhound Park, asked legislators to consider broadening gaming opportunities in the state. Wichita Greyhound Park closed in 2007 after Sedgwick County voters failed to approve slot machines at the track.

    “The issue isn’t gaming, it’s here,” Brazill said. Kansas lottery tickets are available in Sedgwick County, and Kansas just opened a new casino in Mulvane on Dec. 26, just across the county line in Mulvane.

    Paul Sutherland lives near the new casino and also asked legislators to expand gaming but not before cleaning up the state’s lottery and gaming activities.

    “I tried to get the state to respect the law, they’re not,” Southerland told the panel. He said infrastructure is not ready for the casino opening; was paid for by taxpayer and not by the casino operator as promised, and that local government is operating in secret. He called the activity, “The most corrupt activity in our area.”

    Rick Loveall, another supporter of reopening the greyhound park, claimed it would create about 500 jobs with no government support or subsidies. “Someone told me the best way to get it to pass is to ask for $25 million in subsidies. This time we don’t need it.”

    Craig Gable, a Wichita restaurant owner, wants to allow gaming in a wider array of venues, “So it’s not just one guy making all the money.” He called for allowing the number of slot machines being based on the size of the business so even a small restaurant of garage could make a bit of money from gambling.

    Spend more or spend less

    A majority of speakers expressed a desire for the state to either restore recent funding cuts or spend more for various programs. Most offered no suggestions for increasing revenue. A few suggested keeping the 6.3 percent sales tax enacted in 2010 and slated to be reduced to 5.7 percent in 2013.

    Clinton Coen, a Wichita City Council Candidate, and John Todd, a volunteer coordinator for Americans for Prosperity, spoke against layered government subsidies for private projects.

    Todd said his recent door-to-door work gathering petition signatures shows citizens don’t understand the complex methods for using various subsidies and tax abatements, but they generally oppose such corporate handouts.

    Todd and others recently gained enough signatures to require the Wichita City Council to seek voter approval before refunding 75 percent of the Ambassador Hotel’s guest tax for the hotel’s own use.

    Coen also called for legislation against the practice of “pay to play” in which local government officials cast votes that benefit campaign donors. He said the practice is, “rampant legal corruption.”

    Kari Ann Rinker, Kansas coordinator for the National Organization for Women, made an unusual plea for fiscal responsibility by asking legislators to stop spending time, energy and money on abortion legislation.

    Mark Gietzen, with the Kansas Coalition for Life, asked that Kansas adopt heartbeat legislation that is working its way through the Ohio legislature. The bill would protect unborn children from the moment a heartbeat can be detected by stethoscope.

    Revenue vs. environment

    Fracking, the use of pressurized water to fracture rock and dramatically boost oil and gas extraction, has increased dramatically in the last year in Kansas. Proponents say wells can see a 1,000-fold increase in production through horizontal drilling and fracking.

    Zack Pistora, the new Kansas lobbyist for Sierra Club, and a few other speakers called on legislators to limit the practice.

    Music and humor

    Bob James spent his three minutes giving a banjo and vocal rendition of the 1912 union song Bread and Roses from the 1912 Lawrence, Mass., textile strike.

    Laughter erupted as David Robbins produced copies of his 2010 Kansas income tax filing and regaled the audience with an ongoing saga of problems with the Kansas Department of Revenue.

    According to Robbins DOR overpaid his refund by $232.23, which he returned in an amended tax return only to be told that he owed an additional $106. He’s now also fighting to have his filing’s donation to military relief restored after a DOR employee redirected it to meals on wheels without his permission.

    This article was originally published at Legislative Forum Foretells Challenging 2012 Lawmaking Session .

  • The creeping expansion of government power

    Trackside is a column written occasionally by John D’Aloia Jr. He lives in St. Marys, Kansas.

    TRACKSIDE © by John D’Aloia Jr.
    12 December 2011

    A belief I encounter increasingly often is that, with few exceptions, the Guardians ensconced in Washington, and their minions in the bureaucracy, The Clerks, are driven by greed, corruption, fraud, power, and immorality, not by the Essential Liberty principles of our Founding Documents. The electorate is angry and frustrated. They see their resources and their freedom being whittled away for the benefit of the Guardians and their cronies. They see the basic morality of the country being banned from the public square and perversion jammed down their throats. They see the very gas they exhale being cited, in spite of the evidence, as a reason to deny the use of energy resources. They see the Guardians trash the Constitution and their oath of office. They see themselves being made slaves of the state. Daily headlines reinforce these beliefs.

    Much internet traffic has circulated about the words in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (H.R.1540) that gives the federal government the ability to detain U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism, at home or abroad, in military custody, outside of the court system, and hold them indefinitely. Bye, bye Fourth Amendment. This reading of the law was confirmed by Senator Graham, who said in the Senate on November 17th that Section “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

    The Guardians manipulate words to mean whatever they want them to mean and they have the force to impose their meanings — this makes the power of warrant-less arrest of citizens highly dangerous. A pesky Tea Party activist is shining a spotlight on your misdeeds and machinations? Designate him a terrorist and haul him off to a military gulag where he will have no rights, no recourse to the courts. It gives me no comfort knowing that the Guardian-in-Chief’s rule book, written by Saul Alinsky, holds that lying is a tool of the trade, that ends justify means, and that there is no moral code.

    A provision of H.R.-1540 that has not gotten the same notoriety is the one that repeals Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the article that makes sodomy a court-martial offense. (I refrain from quoting Article 125. Google can assist if you must know.) Why repeal it? The repeal fits right in the with the Guardian-in-Chief’s efforts to promote the homosexual agenda as part of his effort to dissolve society’s moral glue, its standards, making it easier for him to impose his vision of a state in which his whims are the law.

    The 9 December issue of the economic newsletter “Casey Daily Dispatch” contains an article titled “Man vs. Morlock” in which the writer reached back and pulled up a book by Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, University of Chicago Press, 1955. The excerpt in the Dispatch included this paragraph, one you may well have read elsewhere, but was not aware from whence it came — I wasn’t:

    “Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the … and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something — but then it was too late.”

    And further on in the excerpt was this “boiling the frog” analogy of how the Nazis gained complete domination:

    “In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.”

    We must make a stand in November 2012. Absent a massive “Road-to-Damascus” constitutional epiphany by the Guardians, and by their Clerks, the only recourse citizens have to regain our country’s future as a free people is to turn them out, election after election, until we again have a Constitutional Republic governed by the virtues established by The Founders. The eviction of the Guardian-in-Chief and voter-imposed term limits on all those who believe they are our Guardians are actions that I encourage all to undertake.

    Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, Pray for Us, Pray For Our Country.

    See you Trackside.

  • CSAPR not friendly, not a ghost

    The following piece by Kansas Representative Dennis Hedke (district 99, Andover and parts of far east Wichita) illustrates another way in which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overreaches. Hedke is a geophysicist by training and profession.

    Every citizen on the planet bears a responsibility toward stewardship of the environment. In the United States we have been blessed by much improved air and water quality over many decades of dedicated effort. There are, however, practical limits as to how far to push the envelope of “clean.”

    The article presented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Wichita Eagle on December 4, 2011 spoke to newly created rules placed on utilities, primarily targeted at coal-burning power plants. These new regulations fall within the “Cross-State Air Pollution Rule,” or CSAPR.

    EPA claims it will “protect hundreds of million of Americans, providing up to $280 billion in benefits by preventing tens of thousands of premature deaths, asthma and heart attacks, and millions of lost days of school or work due to illness,” due to the cleanup of mercury, sulfur and nitrogen oxides, and other emissions.

    Exactly where did the EPA come up with these incredible health benefits?

    According to a Wall Street Journal citation on December 6, 2011, “… the EPA estimates that the benefits to society from mercury reductions in the utility rule max out at $6.1 million, total, while imposing $11 billion in compliance costs annually.”

    Can the EPA cite for me, and the rest of Kansans who wish to know, evidence for any individual living within a 25 mile radius of the Jeffrey Energy Center near St. Mary’s, KS, who has experienced respiratory illness as a direct result of the emissions coming from that plant? Has there been a single lost day of school for any student in the St. Mary’s district due to the emissions coming from that plant? Has anyone lost a day of work as a direct result of emissions coming from that plant?

    If and when EPA conducts an epidemiologic study to answer those questions, I predict the answers will be no, no, and no. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment has confirmed that no such studies have been conducted anywhere in Kansas.

    Yet, the EPA would have us believe that they will be protecting hundreds of millions of Americans from multiple hazardous substances being emitted, and carried ‘downwind’ to Chicago, Pittsburgh, and of course New York City and EPA Headquarters in Washington, DC. I submit they would love to have our air quality. There is something very wrong with this picture.

    Jeffrey Energy Center (through Westar ratepayers) has invested in excess of $600 million within the past decade to retrofit and materially reduce sulfur oxides by 82% and nitrogen oxides by 48%, and other particulates that may be in some way challenging the health profiles of residents proximate to the plant. Not enough according to the EPA.

    Behind the scenes, EPA claims their models conflict with models of other entities, and that rolling brownouts and blackouts won’t happen next summer, as a result of mandatory plant shutdowns. That’s not what has been publicly reported by Westar and many others.

    I’ll go with Westar, and the others.

    Casper, please lend us a hand.

  • Pompeo: Obama, EPA not to be trusted on regulation

    U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district, wrote this op-ed to warn us of the many ways in which President Barack Obama seeks to implement his radical agenda through regulation, this time through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The remedy in this case is in the form of legislation, H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act. The bill was voted on today in the House of Representatives and passed 268 to 150.

    While Pompeo focuses primarily on the direct impact of this regulation on farmers and ranchers, anything that makes these activities more difficult and expensive will drive up food costs for everyone, and many complain that these costs have been rising rapidly. Part of that rise, we might note, is due to regulations that require the use of ethanol in fuel, which diverts corn production away from food.

    A version of this appeared in the Washington Examiner.

    EPA must stop playing in the dust

    By U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo

    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would like to regulate farm dust all across the nation. I know it sounds ridiculous, but given the Obama Administration’s demonstrated hostility toward rural America, it should not come as a huge surprise. Although EPA has verbally reversed course in recent weeks and said it has “no intention” of regulating farm dust, my 11 months in Washington have taught me quickly that we must pay attention to what politicians do and not what they say. EPA’s actions continue to show that radical environmentalists desire to regulate dust. To stop the EPA in its tracks, I have worked to advance H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, through the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. I look forward to final passage on the House Floor later this week.

    In Kansas and across the country, businesses are struggling to stay afloat. At best, EPA is oblivious to this fact. At worst, it deliberately presses forward in spite of the damaging consequences of new regulations. Rather than helping farmers, ranchers, business owners and other entrepreneurs, EPA continually bombards these job creators with undue and costly new regulations. The agriculture sector is now holding its collective breath as EPA considers new air quality standards, which it revises every five years. Under the Clean Air Act, the Agency asserts the authority to regulate farm dust as “coarse particulate matter.” This dust is known very well to rural Kansans. It is merely the dust created from driving down unpaved roads, moving livestock, and working the fields.

    As it is, the current standard already imposes costs and restrictions on farmers, ranchers, agribusiness entities, and small businesses, particularly in arid parts of the West where dust is easily kicked up. Earlier this year, EPA staff suggested tightening standards to levels that would push most of the West — including Kansas — out of compliance.

    In a recent House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing, we heard from individuals who live in these areas, including Arizona farmer Kevin Rogers, who is already threatened by strict dust regulations. Because parts of Arizona already struggle to meet the current dust standards, he and other farmers may be required to halt tillage, drive at a snail’s pace on unpaved roads, stop work entirely on windy days, or take other expensive measures to reduce dust. If the dust standards are actually tightened to the levels suggested by EPA staff, other parts of the country would have to implement similar policies that will destroy the efficiency and productivity our farmers and ranchers are known for.

    Opponents of our efforts call the desire to regulate farm dust a ‘myth’ and liken these concerns to worrying about regulation of fairy dust. While these theatrics garnered some snickers, I was not amused — and neither were the 500 plus Kansas Farm Bureau members I met with just before Thanksgiving who agree that this is a real problem. We need the bipartisan Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act. The American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and over 180 other organizations also agree that this valid concern with what EPA might do is more than fairy dust, and they know that this bill is vitally important to the survival of their industry.

    EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has announced that the agency has “no intention” of further regulating dust. But that announcement sounds more like political rhetoric designed to appease opponents as the 2012 election cycle nears, rather than a genuine promise rural Americans can count on. Given what I know, I would be letting farmers and ranchers down if I simply trusted the Obama Administration on their stated farm dust intentions. Besides, there is also a threat that an environmental group could sue and persuade a pliant EPA to regulate farm dust as a settlement condition. We need smart and clear laws set by Congress — not unelected bureaucrats. The Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act is one. We must ensure that the federal government creates a positive atmosphere for businesses to prosper — including farming and livestock operations. It’s time to forget about regulating farm dust and give rural America some breathing room from the crushing regulations of which this Administration is so fond.

  • Era of energy subsidies is over

    By U.S. Representatives Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Raul Labrador of Idaho, both Republicans. This is the original editorial. A version appeared in the Washington Times.

    I’m afraid that the title of this op-ed is optimistic. As the authors note, “handouts are hard to give up.” But that’s no reason why we shouldn’t try to eliminate this type of harmful government spending. Pompeo has also introduced H.R. 3090: EDA Elimination Act of 2011 to shut down the Economic Development Administration, another source of wasteful government spending on economic development and business.

    The Era of Energy Subsidies is Over

    By Mike Pompeo and Raul Labrador

    Bill Clinton famously said that “the era of big government is over.” Well, it didn’t work out that way. But something truly remarkable is happening in our national conversation about energy subsidies: outrage, mounting opposition, and, we hope, a swift end. This would be great news for taxpayers and for consumers.

    Subsidy folly has been bipartisan and commonplace. For the past three decades, both parties have intervened in the energy industry. In 1978, a Democrat-controlled Congress and President Jimmy Carter created an Investment Tax Credit for solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. In 1992, a Democrat-controlled Congress and Republican President George H.W. Bush passed the Production Tax Credit for electricity produced from wind and biomass. Then in 2005, a Republican-controlled Congress and President George W. Bush passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which included massive tax subsidies for seemingly every energy source under the sun, including alternative vehicles, advanced nuclear power, and of course solar. The latter legislation created the infamous Department of Energy loan guarantee programs that have produced the ongoing Solyndra scandal.

    After three decades, what have we learned? 1) Energy subsidies distort the free market by funneling billions in taxpayer dollars to politically favored energy sources and technologies, preventing market prices from signaling the optimal source for particular energy uses, 2) Subsidizing energy sectors drains the federal fisc and forces the consumption of higher-cost energy sources, 3) Politically allocated capital typically flows to politically connected companies or to large companies that could develop innovative technologies on their own dime. The $535 million Solyndra scandal has reinforced all of these lessons and helped shine a light on the energy subsidy debate, exposing those who maintain government is the solution to our energy needs.

    The good news is, with the support of the American people, politicians are now speaking the truth. At a recent Republican presidential forum, the candidates were in near-unanimous agreement that it is time to end the federal government’s role and allow the free market to bring our nation the next great energy source. Governor Rick Perry said, “I do not think it is the federal government’s business to be picking winners and losers, frankly, in any of our energy sources.” Congresswoman Michelle Bachman had similar remarks: “I want to see a [level] federal playing field. We’ve seen what a disaster it is when the federal government picks winners and losers.” In his economic plan, Governor Mitt Romney said that government “should not be in the business of steering investment toward particular politically favored approaches.” This is progress. Just four years ago almost every candidate in Iowa was afraid to say that subsidizing politically favored energy technologies has been an enormous policy failure.

    Given the shift in the debate, the time is now to end subsidies. This month we introduced the Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act, H.R. 3308, which has garnered support from such conservative organizations as Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, The Club for Growth, The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Freedom Action, Heritage Action for America, National Taxpayers Union, and Taxpayers for Common Sense. H.R. 3308 eliminates all energy tax credits, each of which is nothing more than a taxpayer handout to politically favored industries or companies. From solar to wind, from geothermal to biomass and from ethanol to hydrogen, they must all go. It is equal opportunity — not one single solitary tax credit survives this bill. The proposal will then use the savings realized from the repeal of these tax credits to lower the corporate tax rate. This is a perfect model for tax reform — close out politically allocated tax favors and loopholes and lower taxes on every business that competes in America.

    While we are gaining broad public support to end these energy tax credits, the takers of government largesse seldom go quietly. The pro-subsidy lobby pushes to extend its giveaway from Uncle Sam — seeking to extend the production tax credit subsidies for wind, biomass and geothermal every four years. This is the umpteenth-and-never-final request for “just four more years.” But a few more years will just lead to a few more years after that. Even before we introduced the legislation that for the first time provides zero tax credits to any energy source, the American Wind Energy Association howled that Congressman Pompeo “seems to misunderstand how a key federal tax incentive has built a thriving American wind manufacturing sector and tens of thousands of American jobs.” Well, we both understand perfectly — handouts are hard to give up.

    After three decades, the tide on energy subsidies has turned. Our nation has squandered hundreds of billions of dollars with these tax credits and has little to show for it. We hold no ill will to any of these energy sources that currently receive tax credits — some or all of them may well become the next great American energy technology. But having dozens of energy handouts leads companies to spend resources lobbying Washington, D.C. rather than tinkering in their garages and labs. Indeed, we are counting on one of these alternatives to succeed. We just know that we have no idea — nor do any of our peers in Congress — which one consumers will ultimately demand. The winner must be determined the old-fashioned way: hard work, innovation, American moxie and superior skills engaged in competition.

    Let’s put a different twist on the old saying “not invented here” by acknowledging that energy technology never has been invented here, on the Potomac, and do away with energy subsidies once and for all.

  • Tax increment financing: The right tool for Wichita jobs?

    The following document is from The Heartland Institute. Its original location is The Right Tool for the Job? An Analysis of Tax Increment Financing (Summary).

    As the Wichita City Council seems to have job creation as a primary goal, the council may wish to take notice of one of the article’s conclusions as it consider forming a new tax increment financing (TIF) district: “Job losses in areas surrounding each TIF district more than offset any increase in the number of jobs inside the TIF district, resulting in a rate of job loss greater than the citywide rate.”

    It’s easy to drive by a new store or project and observe people working there. Concluding one’s analysis there is an example of stopping the thinking process at stage one, as Thomas Sowell has said. We need elected officials and bureaucrats who look beyond the immediate, easy-to-see effects of their policies. See Wichita economic development: And then what will happen? for more about the effect of TIF on jobs.

    The Right Tool for the Job? An Analysis of Tax Increment Financing

    Developing Neighborhood Alternatives Project

    Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is an economic development tool that uses the expected growth (or increment) in property tax revenues from a designated geographic area of a municipality to finance bonds used to pay for goods and services calculated to spur growth in the TIF district. The analysis performed for this study found TIF does not tend to produce a net increase in economic activity; favors large businesses over small businesses; often excludes local businesses and residents from the planning process; and operates in a manner that contradicts conventional notions of justice and fairness. We recommend seeking alternatives to TIF and reforms to TIF that make the process more democratic and the distribution of benefits more fair to residents of TIF districts.

    Tax increment financing (TIF) is seldom evaluated from a community perspective.

    Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is an economic development tool that uses the expected growth (or increment) in property tax revenues from a designated geographic area of a municipality to finance bonds used to pay for goods and services calculated to spur growth in the TIF district. It is widely heralded as “one of the last remaining fiscal devices for repairing areas of the city afflicted by urban decay.” But TIF is also a controversial tool.

    Evaluations of TIF typically focus only on the number of new jobs thought to be created in the TIF district and how much property values rose. Such evaluations overlook what happens to community residents and to areas surrounding the TIF district. Were community residents given an opportunity to apply for the new jobs? Were these jobs genuinely new, or were they simply shifted into the district from surrounding areas? Did the jobs pay as well as the jobs that may have been displaced?

    Our work provides the basis for public understanding and discussion of TIF from a community standpoint. We studied five TIF districts in Chicago and the neighborhoods surrounding them to show how a community-centered analysis might be performed. The case studies included both qualitative data on neighborhood-wide changes and interviews with individuals and organizations affected by the TIF district. We also performed a policy analysis, examining TIF law to see what types of development TIF would best be able to facilitate, and what types it can perform only with great difficulty.

    TIF has only a limited impact on economic development.

    The five case studies found TIF increased land values. However, the case studies also found:

    • TIF did not consistently increase the number of businesses: Two of the three commercially oriented TIF districts and their surrounding areas experienced a net loss in businesses. The third had a net increase, but at a rate slower than the city average. The two residentially oriented TIF districts and their surrounding areas saw net increases in number of businesses above the city average.
    • TIF did not create a net increase in the number of jobs: Job losses in areas surrounding each TIF district more than offset any increase in the number of jobs inside the TIF district, resulting in a rate of job loss greater than the citywide rate.
    • TIF tended to increase residential property sales: Three of the five TIF districts and their surrounding areas saw dramatic increases in the number of residential sales, well above the citywide rate. Two reported small decreases.
    • TIF’s impact on housing prices was mixed: In some instances, median housing prices increased faster than the citywide median, in other cases slower. In the two residential TIF districts, the sale prices of the TIF-subsidized housing were considerably higher than the citywide median.

    (more…)

  • ‘Sustainable planning’ not so sustainable

    By Randal O’Toole, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A version of this appeared in the Wichita Eagle.

    The vast majority of Americans, surveys say, aspire to live in a single-family home with a yard. The vast majority of American travel — around 85 percent — is by automobile. Yet the Obama administration thinks more Americans should live in apartments and travel on foot, bicycle, or mass transit.

    To promote this idea, the administration wants to give the south central Regional Economic Area Partnership (REAP) the opportunity to apply for a $1.5 million grant to participate in “sustainable communities.” Also sometimes called “smart growth,” the ideas promoted by these programs are anything but sustainable or smart. (As members of REAP, the governing bodies for both Wichita and Sedgwick County endorsed this grant.)

    The urban plans that come out of these kinds of programs typically call for:

    • Redesigning streets to increase traffic congestion in order to discourage people from driving;
    • Increasing subsidies to transit, bike paths, and other “alternative” forms of travel even though these alternatives are used by few people;
    • Denying owners of land on the urban fringes the right to develop their property in order to make single-family housing more expensive;
    • Subsidizing high-density, developments that combine housing with retail shops in the hope that people will walk to shopping rather than drive;
    • Rezoning neighborhoods of single-family homes for apartments with zoning so strict that, if someone’s house burns down, they will have to replace it with an apartment.

    My former hometown of Portland, Oregon has followed these policies for two decades, and the results have been a disaster. In their zeal to subsidize transit and high-density developments, the region’s officials have taken money from schools, libraries, fire, and police, leaving those programs starved and in disarray.

    Since 1980, Portland has spent more than $3 billion building light-rail lines. Far from improving transit, the share of commuters taking transit to work has fallen from 9.8 percent in 1980 to 7.5 percent today, mainly because the region cut bus service to pay for the trains. Traffic congestion quadrupled between 1984 and 2004, which planners say was necessary to get people to ride transit.

    The region’s housing policies made single-family homes so expensive that most families with children moved to distant suburbs where they can afford a house with a yard. Residents of subsidized high-density housing projects drive just about as much as anyone else in the Portland area, and developers have learned to their sorrow that if they follow planners’ guidelines in providing less parking for these projects, they will end up with high vacancy rates.

    Despite these problems, Portland has received lots of positive publicity. The reason for this is simple: by forcing out families with children, inner Portland is left mainly with young singles and childless couples who eat out a lot, making Portland a Mecca for tourists who like exciting new restaurants. This makes Portland a great place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there unless you like noisy, congested streets.

    The idea of “sustainable communities” is that planners can socially engineer people into changing their travel behavior by redesigning cities to favor pedestrians and transit over automobiles. Beyond the fact that this is an outrageous intrusion of government into people’s lives, it simply doesn’t work. Such experts as University of California economist David Brownstone and University of Southern California planning professor Genevieve Giuliano have shown that the link between urban design and driving is too weak to make a difference.

    To protect livability and avoid unsustainable subsidies to transit and high-density development, Wichita, Sedgwick County, and other REAP members of south central Kansas should reject the $1.5 million grant offered by the federal government.

    Randal O’Toole (rot@cato.org) is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future.

    For more about the local grant, see Sedgwick County considers a planning grant.

  • Free market energy solutions don’t jeopardize national security

    By Mike Pompeo (R-KS) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Republican Members of Congress.

    This is not the first time Rep. Pompeo has spoken in favor of free markets for energy. As reported in the Wichita Eagle in May: “Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, wants Congress to just say ‘no’ to all energy subsidies.” He has also introduced H. Res. 267, which is subtitled “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States should end all subsidies aimed at specific energy technologies or fuels.” Following is an article by Pompeo and Rep. Flake, a version of which appeared in the Washington Examiner.

    Details of the Solyndra scandal continue to unfold, but what we know so far should teach a valuable lesson: The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers in the energy industry. With half a billion taxpayer dollars now likely gone forever, you would think the Obama Administration would learn. Unfortunately, it has not. The Department of Energy said in a recent blog posting, “We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed, but we can’t stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America’s leadership in the global economy.” Translation: We’re not that good at manipulating the energy industry, but we’re not going to stop anytime soon.

    By spurring development of the politically-favored alternative fuel of the moment, devotees of federal energy subsidies say that we can stop sending dollars overseas. Interests ranging from wind to solar, from propane to biodiesel, from natural gas to algae purport to provide the key to America’s energy and national security needs. Unfortunately, even some conservatives appear to have fallen for this ruse.

    We can agree that having less oil imported from the Middle East would improve America’s national security interests. However admirable that goal, having Congress and the President pick winners and losers in the energy sector is neither practical nor principled.

    Let’s begin with what we know: national security interests compel us first and foremost to get our financial house in order. We agree with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, when he said, “Our national debt is our biggest national security threat.” With the federal debt estimated to hit $25 trillion by 2021, the United States cannot continue throwing billions of taxpayer dollars away on federal energy subsidies. In 2009 alone, the government gave over $18 billion in handouts to a wide variety of energy sources, including wind, hydrogen, natural gas, oil, and ethanol. We simply cannot keep wasting money on federal energy subsidies.

    Not only are federal energy subsidies that try to artificially inspire a market for a given product unaffordable, they simply aren’t effective. Subsidy policy toward the renewable and alternative fuels industry has been tried for more than three decades (from President Carter’s Synfuels Corporation in the early 1980s to President Obama’s Solyndra just this year) — and it has failed.

    Alternative energy producers often say that consumers have just not yet caught on to how wonderful the subsidized product is. All we need, they say, are just five years of handouts and everything will be okay. And when those five years are up? These same folks come back for more because customer demand alone will not support the industry as it becomes accustomed to relying on government handouts. It’s precisely this kind of phenomenon that led President Reagan to observe that “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”

    The constant pursuit of federal tax subsidies also keeps some private capital on the sidelines that would otherwise be invested in alternative energy. What private company wants to compete with the federal government? This failed history makes the continued push for energy subsidies by some supposed-conservatives all the more puzzling.

    With gas prices continuing to skyrocket and the federal subsidy policy continuing to fail, how can we make U.S. energy policy reflect our national security interests? First, we must lift the de facto moratorium on domestic energy exploration — off the Gulf Coast, on the Outer Continental Shelf, and elsewhere. Second, we must remove other regulatory burdens, such as the threat that EPA will halt hydraulic fracturing. And finally, we have to stop using taxpayer dollars to pick winners and losers in the energy sector. With these commonsense steps, we can achieve successful energy reform.

    Phasing out market-distorting energy subsidies, preventing the expansion of existing subsidies, and stopping the creation of new ones (for the “latest, greatest” technology) must be part of the overall strategy. Many subsidies, such as fuel tax credits for ethanol, hydrogen, and natural gas, are set to expire soon. There is no reason to pile on our debt while simultaneously distorting the energy market for fuel products that can stand on their own. It is far better for government to keep its thumb off the scale and allow market competition to determine which alternative energy source or sources will succeed.

    Forking over taxpayer handouts in the name of national security does not change that simple truth. Although subsidy seekers argue that OPEC’s dominant position in the world oil market means that government intervention in the energy marketplace is warranted, there is a major flaw in that logic. If collusion by the OPEC cartel really boosts the price of oil artificially high, then alternative fuels should have an easier time competing against it without a subsidy.

    A real conservative solution to energy security requires less government, not more. Looking at our energy policy through a national security lens only strengthens the argument for relying on free-market solutions. When it comes to national security, we cannot afford to abandon free-market principles. As the Solyndra example demonstrates, the stakes are simply too high to cast aside the single best arbiter of capital allocation in human history — the free market — in favor of misguided central planning via government mandate.

  • Wichita City Council procedure: A citizen’s perspective

    By Shirley Koehn

    Remarks by Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer at the August 9, 2011 meeting of the Wichita City Council referenced the discussion and testimony just prior, dealing with an agenda item scheduled for a vote (Letter of Intent to Douglas Place LLC). Mayor Brewer’s remarks were disconcerting and seemed aimed at scolding both members of the public and one council member for voicing opinions differing from the council majority.

    Members of the public speaking about the issuing of a letter of intent to Douglas Place LLC raised legitimate questions as to the procedures. Logical procedure would be first the required public hearing (with published notice to allow time for public participation), followed by council vote at its next meeting. Reversal of this order lends itself to doubts by the public as to whether this was actually an open procedure. The question raised by one council member as to whether the construction contracts (building of the parking garage) should be open to bid seems a legitimate question, not one intended to malign anyone’s integrity. It was also noted that the developer in question made a $500 contribution to each council member’s last campaign, except to the council member speaking (who is usually the dissenting voice on public private partnerships). The campaign contribution relation to the frequency of the developer’s seeking public subsidies is probably a factor any good investigative reporter or member of the public might question. In the interest of transparency, relevant contribution(s) should accompany public documents coming before the council. (It is a common for such statements regarding financial interest, ownership, etc to be made in the interest of transparency). Judging by the mayor’s remarks, it appears that once elected, each council member is to forget his core values and acquiesce to the majority of the council.

    It is the responsibility of council members to protect public interests, not to protect interests of a select group. I think Mayor Brewer is confusing legitimate public inquiry with attacking the Mayor and members of the council. Have we reached the point where a council member cannot question the majority or when a member of the public cannot challenge the procedures and conclusions of the council?

    I have spoken several times before the council. The first time, I received what might be called a reprimand for essentially being uninformed. The comment from Mayor Brewer was to the effect that the mayor and council were elected to do the city’s business and they know best. Since that time I have seen the same sentiment voiced to newcomers.

    In spite of this, I and others continue to make our voices heard. We work hard to research, to operate on as much fact as we can find and be respectful of the positions the Mayor and Council members hold. At the same time, I believe members of the public, from various socioeconomic levels deserve to be heard, with respect, by the mayor and council.

    “A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that … it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” — Milton Friedman