Voice For Liberty

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  • Beware of government arts spending

    Beware of government arts spending

    Art is too important to be dependent on politicians and injecting politics into anything inevitably tarnishes it, writes Lawrence W. Reed of Foundation for Economic Education.

    Economist Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character and Conviction. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

    While in Wichita Reed appeared on WichitaLiberty.TV in this episode. An abridged version of the following appeared in the Wichita Eagle.

    Beware of Government Arts Spending
    By Lawrence W. Reed

    While visiting Wichita in October, I learned that city government subsidies for the arts is a local, contentious issue. I’d like to offer a perspective: Don’t do it. Art is too important to be dependent on politicians and injecting politics into anything inevitably tarnishes it.

    Proponents of art subsidies argue that because a large majority of people enjoy art and even personally engage in it, it’s therefore a government responsibility. But even larger majorities of people enjoy things like clothing, pets and good movies; this fact is actually an argument for government to butt out and stick to doing its proper duties.

    Lawrence W. Reed
    Lawrence W. Reed
    Those “studies” that purport to show X return on Y amount of government arts spending are a laughingstock among economists. The numbers are cooked and almost never compared to alternative uses of tax money. Even less frequently do subsidy advocates consider what people might choose to do if their earnings weren’t taxed away in the first place.

    Every interest group with a claim on the treasury argues that spending for its projects produces some magical “multiplier” effect. Routing other people’s money through politicians and bureaucracy is supposed to somehow magnify wealth, while leaving it in the pockets of those who earned it is somehow a drag. Assuming for a moment that such preposterous claims are correct, wouldn’t it then make sense to direct all income through the government?

    What if “public investment” simply displaces a certain amount of private investment? Arts subsidy advocates never raise this issue, but I know that I personally am far less likely to make a charitable donation to something I know is on the dole than to something that depends on the good hearts of willing givers.

    What if I, as a taxpayer, could keep what the government would otherwise spend on the arts and invest it in my child’s education and get twice the return than the government would ever get on the arts? The more that government takes, the less we can purchase of the things we value, including tickets to the theatre or a concert.

    Money which comes voluntarily from the heart is more meaningful than money that comes at gunpoint (taxes). For that reason I don’t believe in either arts welfare or shotgun marriages. There’s an endless list of desirable, enriching things, very few of which carry a tag that says, “Must be provided by taxes and politicians.”

    If we don’t rob Peter the worker to pay Paul the artist, perhaps Paul may have to become a better artist or a better marketer of his art, or perhaps find another profession entirely. Welcome, Paul, to the real world of willing customers and earning an honest living.

  • Teachers unions vs. students

    From PragerU:

    There is a dilemma in American education. On the one hand, teachers are essential to student achievement. On the other, teachers unions promote self-interests of their members which are antithetical to the interests of students. So, how do we fix this problem? In five minutes, Terry Moe, Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, delineates this quandary and offers solutions.

    View below, or click here to view at YouTube.

  • The unprecedented campaign against free speech

    The unprecedented campaign against free speech

    The political left’s campaign to silence opponents and reorder society in accordance with their personal beliefs is in many ways the single greatest threat to America’s experiment in self-governance, writes Mark Holden.

    The unprecedented campaign against free speech

    By Mark Holden. Originally published in The Hill.

    The liberal Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once warned of the biggest danger facing free speech: “If you have no doubt of your premises or your power, and want a certain result with all your heart, you naturally express your wishes in law, and sweep away all opposition.”

    Yet many lawmakers today are mistaking his wise warning as an invitation to restrict the First Amendment. At nearly every level of government, freedom of speech is under unprecedented attack. Many on the political left now seek to silence their opponents and reorder society in accordance with their personal beliefs. This is in many ways the single greatest threat to America’s experiment in self-governance.

    This coordinated campaign has been underway for years. Its creation can be traced to the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, when the court refused to accept the Obama administration’s argument that it could ban books, mailers, advertisements or anything else that contained a political message during an election campaign. This simple ruling ensured that Americans retained the fundamental right to use free speech to praise or criticize a candidate running for office.

    However, that is the very core of free speech itself. If Americans — individually or acting together through nonprofits, businesses or labor unions — cannot voice their views on public policy and elected officials, then the democratic process as we know it is dead. The result is a system that makes those already in power even more powerful; incumbents need not fear having those pesky voters learn about their statements, views and voting records.

    In fact, liberal politicians and activists swiftly made opposition to Citizens United a defining part of their platform from the moment the Supreme Court issued its decision. By 2014, no fewer than 54 U.S. Senators — all Democrats or Democratic allies such as current presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) — supported a constitutional amendment essentially rewriting the First Amendment so that the federal government could regulate and criminalize free speech. Congressional Democrats are once again preparing to make a push to roll back the court’s decision and stifle free speech.

    Not to be outdone, leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has declared that she would only appoint judges who promise to overturn Citizens United and permit the censorship of political speech.

    At the same time, lawmakers and their allies have found other ways to stifle their opponents’ speech. Americans learned in 2013 that the IRS had systematically singled out conservative nonprofits in the build-up to the 2012 election. The agency harassed many applicants and kneecapped others by refusing to grant them tax-exempt status, restricting their members and supporters from exercising their rights to free speech and free association.

    Sadly, this abuse of power still occurs. The federal courts recently learned that multiple nonprofits still haven’t received IRS approval.

    Even more attacks on free speech are happening at the state level. For example, New York and California are both demanding that some nonprofits hand over lists of donors to the state. Although the government invariably promises to not release this legally confidential information, California has “accidentally” posted at least 1,400 supporter lists online.

    This fact, and ongoing harassment by California Attorney General Kamala Harris, led a federal judge to permanently stop her from obtaining the donor list of one organization, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. (Full disclosure: I am a director of the related Americans for Prosperity.) However, the IRS has done something similar, conveniently disclosing confidential taxpayer information for several of the Obama administration’s political opponents.

    And then there are the demands that government investigate organizations that hold unpopular or controversial views. Over a dozen state attorneys general (all of them Democrats), recently announced that they will go after companies such as Exxon Mobil that disagree with their views on climate change. The prosecutors’ goal is to intimidate these groups to change their position or else face criminal prosecution.

    Federal lawmakers are in on the action, too. The Department of Justice has asked the FBI to begin similar investigations of major energy companies. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has even called for organizations that disagree with him to be prosecuted under the federal law banning racketeering — a law originally meant to target mobsters and drug kingpins.

    This coordinated campaign is antithetical to the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. In our system of self-government, when someone finds other people’s ideas and opinions disagreeable or even reprehensible, the solution is more speech, not less. Yet instead of persuading others to see their point of view, many in today’s society would rather use government’s power to bully their opponents into silence instead.

    Thankfully, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have tried to combat this assault on free speech. They have championed a number of reforms to protect the First Amendment and prevent elected officials and the administrative state from stifling Americans’ right to free speech.

    Their leadership should be praised, but much more needs to be done. This fundamental right won’t truly be protected until Americans of all political persuasions heed Justice Holmes’s wise words.

    Holden is senior vice president and general counsel of Koch Industries, Inc. and a director of Americans for Prosperity. (The chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, David Koch, is also executive vice president and director of Koch Industries.)

  • Kansas state school board member should practice what he preaches

    Kansas state school board member should practice what he preaches

    By Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute.

    District 9 Kansas State School Board member Jim Porter published the following piece outlining what he considers to be deceptive statements about school funding and state taxes. He urges political leaders to “tell the whole story” but doesn’t practice what he preaches, as we found a dozen deceptive statements in his piece.

    We are consistently hearing from those political leaders who are resisting what many of us consider to be the adequate funding of education that Schools are receiving more state support than ever and that support is increasing every year. Typically they say that people need to know the facts. Well, that is part of the story and although not a false statement it is certainly deceptive. I will make an attempt to explain the part of the story that they are not telling.

    Continue reading at Kansas Policy Institute.

  • HB 2615 is a Bi-Partisan Healthcare Solution that Governor Sam Brownback should Support

    By Andrew Brown, Foundation for Government Accountability

    This site recently published an extensive critique of HB 2615, a bill that would protect doctors and health care professionals providing free charity care and reward them with a minor licensing incentive, and the author encouraged Gov. Brownback to veto the bill. Mr. Weeks has graciously allowed me, as a supporter who worked on behalf of HB 2615, to issue a response to his article. I truly appreciate the opportunity to present another side.

    I agree that we do need to reconsider and reform occupational licensure across the board and we absolutely should expect medical professionals to stay current in their field. And while Continuing Medical Education credits are one way, they aren’t the only way to achieve that goal. In fact, Kansas already allows doctors to receive CME credits for a range of non-educational activities.

    What’s more important though is the stifling effects abusive medical malpractice lawsuits which often benefit lawyers more than patients can have on the amount of free care doctors and health care professionals are willing to give. This means doctors and others offer less charity than they otherwise would while our low-income neighbors struggle to get access to the health care services they need. HB 2615 seeks to change this by reducing government barriers and freeing medical professionals to provide high-quality care to those who need it most.

    HB 2615 doesn’t increase regulations on medical professionals, but eases the burden of existing continuing education regulations and rewards them for giving their time and talents to voluntarily serve those who can’t afford care. It also extends liability protections provided by the Kansas Tort Claims Act to medical professionals who choose to volunteer serving those in need so that the fear of a frivolous lawsuit doesn’t stand in the way of doing good.

    Although Kansas currently requires physicians to participate in 50 hours of continuing medical education annually (which they often pay for out of their own pockets), the law divides continuing education hours into two categories.

    Category I hours are the kind we typically think of when it comes to continuing education — the structured, academic lectures or workshops where physicians get up to speed on the latest medical research and techniques. 1 Every Kansas physician is required to earn 20 hours of Category I credit each year. 2 This doesn’t change with HB 2615.

    The remaining 30 hours, then, may be earned from Category II, which is considerably more flexible. 3 A physician can earn Category II hours in a number of ways like “participating in journal clubs,” having “patient-centered discussions with other health care practitioners,” and (my personal favorite) “using searchable electronic databases in connection with patient care activities.” 4 The hours that physicians would earn for charitable care provided under HB 2615 fall under Category II, meaning that they will still have to earn the same 20 hours of critical Category I hours in order to maintain licensure. If we allow physicians to earn Category II credits for writing journal articles or Googling a patient’s symptoms, why shouldn’t we reward them with a few Category II hours for voluntarily providing a child with an inhaler to provide relief from his asthma symptoms, or treating a mother’s high blood pressure?

    HB 2615 is a proven bi-partisan solution that works to provide care to our friends and neighbors in need by reducing regulatory barriers and unleashing the power of charity to immediately improve access to quality medical care. In 1993, the state of Florida instituted the nation’s first volunteer health services program, which served as the model for HB 2615. Since that time, volunteers in the Sunshine State have provided more than $2.8 BILLION in care to those in need. Each year, nearly 500,000 free patient visits are provided by the state’s top medical professionals valued at more than $300 million. 5 All this happened not through a government program, but because the government recognized that the local community was better equipped to handle a problem, so it got out of the way.

    While the data is impressive, HB 2615 is about changing lives. Recently, I had the privilege of speaking with a doctor in Orlando who has dedicated her career to providing volunteer medical services. She told me a powerful story of a truck driver who lost his job because of severe diabetes. Since he was unable to work, he did not have insurance to get the care he needed to get his diabetes under control. Fortunately, he lived in the community where this doctor worked and he was able to get the treatment and care he needed. Eventually, his health improved, which allowed him to go back to work. Thanks to the efforts of this doctor and the volunteer health services program, this man is now working, providing for his family, and has health insurance coverage so that he can stay healthy and working. HB 2615 would bring more stories like this to Kansas.

    If Governor Brownback wants to chalk up another win for individual liberty, signing HB 2615 is the best way to do it. This action would send a message that Kansas not only trusts its medical professionals to care for the needs of medically indigent citizens, but that they are better able to provide this care than any government program or insurance company could ever dream.

    Andrew Brown is an attorney and Senior Fellow with the Foundation for Government Accountability.

    —
    Notes

    1. K.A.R. 100-15- 4(b) ↩
    2. K.A.R. 100-15- 5(a)(1)(A) ↩
    3. Id. ↩
    4. K.A.R. 100-15- 4(c) ↩
    5. Patrick Ishmael and Jonathan Ingram, “Volunteer Care: Affordable Health care without Growing Government,” The Foundation for Government Accountability, Oct. 27, 2015, available at thefga.org/download/Volunteer-Care-Research-Paper.pdf. ↩
  • Governor Brownback, please veto this harmful bill

    Governor Brownback, please veto this harmful bill

    Kansas Governor Sam Brownback should veto a bill that is harmful to property rights, writes John Todd. For more about this issue, see Power of Kansas cities to take property may be expanded.

    Senate Bill 338 has been passed by the Legislature and is now on its way for Governor Sam Brownback to consider. The Governor should veto this bill. This bill gives cities, in conjunction with their preferred nonprofit organizations, the ability to take possession of unoccupied residential houses that the property taxes are currently paid in full. This bill will clearly place vulnerable senior citizens and less affluent property owners in the position of being victimized.

    Cities in Kansas have all the powers they need to deal with property issues through current law. Over the past few years, the City of Wichita has bulldozed hundreds of houses for housing code violations. Enhancing the power of cities and their appointed nonprofit redevelopment organizations to take privately owned properties they do not own without compensation is wrong.

    I urge Governor Brownback to veto this bill!

    John Todd
    Wichita

  • Math quiz on Kansas spending

    Math quiz on Kansas spending

    The average Kansan is misinformed regarding Kansas school spending, and Kansas news media are to blame, writes Paul Waggoner of Hutchinson.

    Math Quiz on Kansas Spending

    By Paul Waggoner

    Math questions, one would think, are very straight-forward and easy to answer. At least easy to guess the right answer in a simple multiple choice test. Such is not the case however with the average Kansan who follows state issues relying on the headlines in the Kansas press.

    The reality of how poor a job the Kansas press is doing with numbers is found in a December 2015 SurveyUSA study of 500 plus registered voters in Kansas. This scientific study of voters’ knowledge of educational spending in Kansas was virtually ignored by the Kansas media. Most likely because its implications don’t fit the media narrative on education in this Year 5 of the Age of Brownback. Even worse, the poll was commissioned by a conservative think tank, the Kansas Policy Institute.

    As to voter (mis) understanding this 15 question poll hit the jackpot. All the questions were multiple choice with only 4 options given.

    Question #6 asked how much state funding do you think Kansas school districts receive per pupil? The correct answer is well over $7,000 per student. 39% of Kansas voters thought it was under $4,000, another 22% thought between $4,000 and $5,000. Only 7% of voters guessed properly.

    The follow-up, Question #7, was how much total (federal/state/local) funding do you think Kansas school districts receive per pupil? The correct answer in 2015 was over $13,000 per pupil. Only 5% of registered Kansas voters got that one right. 40% thought the total was under $7,000, and 21% said $7,000 to $10,000 which were the two most inaccurate options!

    At this point I was even wondering how the accepted wisdom is so far removed from the truth. So I went to ksde.org, the website of the Kansas State Department of Education, to verify the precise figures. At that website every school district in the state is listed.

    What our local school districts spend is very close to the state averages. The Hutchinson USD 308 budget was over $60,000,000 in 2014 with 4,836 full-time students or $12,449 spent per pupil. 5 years earlier the USD 308 budget was $57 million, 5 years before that it was about $41 million.

    The comparable figures for USD 313 Buhler are $12,360 per pupil in 2014 with a $26,300,000 budget that 5 years earlier was $22,200,00 and 5 years before that was $18,000,000. For USD 313 that meant students were educated for just $9,000 per pupil as recently as 2005.

    Kansas school districts total spending is $2.0 billion higher now than just 10 years ago ($6 billion versus $4 billion). That is an incontrovertible fact. Which leads to two immediate questions: How can the Supreme court keep claiming the spending is constitutionally inadequate? And what exactly do taxpayers have to show for the extra $2,000,000,000 every year?

    The reality of those numbers are nowhere in the publics’ consciousness currently. For instance, SurveyUSA question #8 was “over the last 5 years how much do you think total per pupil funding has changed?” The correct answer is that it is actually up 9.92%. But fully 47% of Kansas voters confidently said it had dropped over 5%! Another 15% were sure it had dropped but thought the percentage was smaller. Only 7% of voters knew that school spending was up “over 5%’.

    The budget trajectory has changed and is on a much flatter curve than ever before. Taxpayers are mostly rejoicing, tax spenders (and their allies) are howling mad.

    My revised school spending narrative is frankly the story of the entire Kansas budget (as can be easily accessed at budget.ks.gov “Governors Budget Report FY 2017”).

    The state general fund budget first hit $1 billion in 1980 and grew consistently under Governors Carlin/Hayden/Finney at about a 6.5% annual rate.

    Under Graves and Sebelius that accelerated growth rate continued until the 2008-09 recession when the state budget dropped dramatically for 1 year under Governor Parkinson. This made a cumulative annual growth average of around 3% for those three administrations.

    Under Governor Brownback the general fund budget is still going up, but at a 5 year annual growth rate of 1.8%.

    On February 20th one Hutchinson News columnist’s headline blasted the “Deliberate financial starving of the state of Kansas.” I see this as more of a diet, and I say it is about time.

    The numbers on the state budget spending (and taxation) are readily available online. The execution of the plan for this new governmental trajectory leave something to be desired, but that is the topic for another day.

    Paul Waggoner is a Hutchinson resident and business owner. He can be reached with comments or questions at waggonerpm@gmail.com.

  • CBPP pushes political viewpoint as economic analysis

    CBPP pushes political viewpoint as economic analysis

    The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities (CBPP) is at it again, pushing their political viewpoint disguised as economic analysis, writes Dave Trabert of Kansas Policy Institute.

    CBPP pushes political viewpoint as economic analysis

    By Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute

    Well, the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities (CBPP) is at it again … pushing their political viewpoint disguised as economic analysis. CBPP’s November 30 blog post attempts to use Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data to warn other states that Kansas’ tax reform is failing.

    CBPP’s simplistic look at annual changes in GDP seems merely designed to support their political preference for higher taxes and spending, as a look at the underlying data throws a lot of cold water on their contention.

    First of all, CBPP is talking about total real GDP, which includes government and is adjusted for inflation. The intent of tax reform was to grow the private sector, not government, so an honest analysis would at least show the difference. The CBPP chart shows 2013 growth at -0.3% for Kansas and 1.9% for the nation; Kansas also trailed (1.8% to 2.2%) in 2014. The adjacent table shows private sector growth is closer to the national average, but that is just the beginning.

    Tax policy certainly has an impact on economic growth but some change is unrelated to tax policy. For example, Kansas is much more reliant on aerospace that most states and changes in that industry are driven by global demand more than anything else. The Kansas economy is also more reliant on oil and gas than most states, so declining oil prices have disproportionate economic impact on extraction and refining.

    Each of those three areas declined in 2013 (aerospace is a sub-sector of Other Transportation Equipment Manufacturing) in Kansas but they increased in the nation as a whole. But Kansas outperformed the nation on everything else (97% of the U.S. economy, 95.4% in Kansas), growing 2.5% to the nation’s 2.2%.

    That’s not to say that tax reform is a success — it’s far too early to judge — but it does show that factors other than tax reform had a very significant negative impact in 2013.

    Let’s now look at 2014. BEA has not yet published sub-sector data for 2014 but we can look at the sectors that include them. Mining (oil & gas extracting) increased in Kansas and the nation, but much less so in Kansas. Non-Durable Goods (petroleum manufacturing) did slightly better in Kansas than across the nation but Durable Goods (aerospace) declined in Kansas while the nation as a whole increased. But once again, everything else grew faster in Kansas (2.5%) than the nation overall (2.3%).

    We won’t know for certain until the sub-sector data is published, but there is a reasonable possibility that, aside from those three relatively small sub-sectors, Kansas again outperformed the rest of the nation in private sector GDP.

    This is really easy information to find if one bothers to look, but CBPP apparently isn’t interested in real economic analysis; they distort data to support their political perspective as we have shown here and here.

    The 2015 projection comes from Kansas Legislative Research and appears to include government rather than just reflect the private sector. Their underlying rationale has been requested and will be addressed here once they provide the data.

  • Kansas school funding growing faster than inflation

    Kansas school funding growing faster than inflation

    Kansas school funding has been growing much faster inflation and enrollment, but for some, it will never be enough, and they will continue to use taxpayer money to press their monetary demands, writes Dave Trabert of Kansas Policy Institute.

    Even by KASB standards, school operating spending is $3.9 billion ahead of inflation

    By Dave Trabert

    A recent blog post by the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) Associate Executive Director Mark Tallman says “Total school district funding is, in fact, at an all-time high, expected to top $6.1 billion this year” but “… the part of school funding available for day-to-day operating costs is not keeping up with inflation and enrollment.” There are several misleading aspects to his statement and the data does not support the intended message, but let’s first give credit for the courage to contradict education officials who say funding has been cut. Bravo!

    KASB’s definition of operating costs does not comport with the official definition used by the Kansas Department of Education or the U.S. Department of Education1, but for the sake of argument, let’s say that it’s correct. Let’s also assume that their definition of current operating funding represents the amount needed to efficiently operate schools and achieve the required outcomes, even though the facts refute any such claim.

    By increasing the KASB-defined operating spending for inflation (the calculation for 2006 is $6,928 times (191.41 ÷ 185.14) = $7,162), we find that schools received a lot more money each year than if KASB’s 2005 amount had been increased each year for inflation. The margin of difference is getting closer over the next two years (if one doesn’t count all of the funding), but funding will have exceeded inflation by almost $3.9 billion since 2005.

    KASB uses a different methodology in their inflation analysis. They show prior years’ spending in 2014 inflation-adjusted (constant) dollars; i.e., $X spending in 2014 has the same buying power as $Y in prior years. That methodology is common for restating buying power but it is irrelevant to the question of whether schools are or have been adequately funded.

    The Kansas Constitution says the legislature must make suitable provision for the finance of public education; it does not say that schools must be given whatever they want to spend or that efficient use of taxpayer money cannot be taken into account. The honest truth is that no one knows what schools need to achieve the necessary outcomes while making efficient use of taxpayer money, because no such analysis has ever been undertaken in Kansas. We do know, however, that every Legislative Post Audit has found schools to be operating inefficiently and school superintendents openly acknowledge that they choose to spend more than is necessary in many circumstances. We also know that school districts haven’t even spent all of the money they’ve received over the last ten years, as about $400 million has been used to increase operating cash reserves.

    There may be ways to demonstrate that today’s funding has less buying power than a particular point in time but that doesn’t mean that each year’s funding didn’t keep up with inflation and enrollment — as shown above, per-pupil funding as defined by KASB was $3.9 billion more than an inflationary increase.

    The gap is even greater for total funding, which would have been $6 billion less over the last ten years if per-pupil funding for the 2005 school year had been increased each year for inflation. School districts received large funding increases beginning in 2006 from a Supreme Court Montoy ruling based on a cost study that has since been abandoned by the Supreme Court in Gannon.

    The Shawnee County District Court may believe that schools are not adequately funded, but they ignored the Kansas Supreme Court in arriving at what amounts to little more than a political perspective. School funding has been growing much faster inflation and enrollment, but for some, it will never be enough … and they will continue to use taxpayer money to fund KASB justifications (and attorneys) for their monetary demands.

     

    1KSDE and the U.S. Department of Education say operating expenditures “…do not include equipment (700 object codes), Capital Outlay or Bond & Interest. [700 object codes include expenditures for acquiring fixed assets, including land or existing buildings; improvements of grounds; initial equipment; additional equipment; and replacement of equipment.]”  The KASB definition also excludes Food Service and employee retirement costs but they don’t disclose that their definition is not the official definition and it also does not comport with the Kansas Supreme Court, which says all funding sources, including retirement costs, should be considered as part of adequate funding.