Voice For Liberty

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  • Marcussen organ a Wichita treasure

    Marcussen Organ, Wiedemann Hall, Wichita State UniversityThe Great Marcussen Organ in Wiedemann Hall, Wichita State University. This is how it looks from my usual seat, A2, right on the front row.

    One of the most important — but most underappreciated, in my opinion — cultural assets in Wichita is the Marcussen organ at Wichita State University and Wiedemann Recital Hall, which houses the organ.

    It’s not only the organ and recital hall, but the people who have been in charge of WSU’s organ program and the Rie Bloomfield Organ Series, which brings in accomplished concert organists from around the world for a series of five or so recitals each year.

    It was WSU organ professor Robert Town who had the vision for a grand concert organ at WSU, and it was he who did the fund-raising necessary for such a project. The result was a recital hall and an organ built by the distinguished 200-year-old Danish firm Marcussen and Son. The WSU organ was the firm’s first in North America. Its first concert was in October 1986.

    Marcussen Organ, Wiedemann Hall, Wichita State UniversityThis is the performance setup that Professor Lynne Davis recently started using, where video of the console of the organ is displayed on a large screen.

    In 2006 Town retired. WSU was very fortunate to recruit Lynne Davis, a native of Michigan who had an accomplished music career in France, to come to Wichita and assume the duties of running the university’s organ program. Professor Davis has interjected a great deal of energy into the organ program at WSU, as far as its public face goes.

    In particular, last year she started the “Wednesdays in Wiedemann” series of recitals. These short events are a fine way to become acquainted with the organ and its music without making a major time commitment.

    (I should mention that the music you’ll hear at these recitals is usually far removed from what most people are accustomed to hearing in church.)

    Lynne Davis Marcussen Organ 2009Lynne Davis at the console of the Great Marcussen Organ.

    Dates for Wednesdays at Wiedemann are (in 2009) September 2, October 7, November 4, December 2, (in 2010) January 27, March 3, March 31, and April 28. For all dates, the starting time is 5:30 pm. The recitals are billed as lasting just 30 minutes, but fortunately for attendees, they usually last a little longer. Admission is free.

    For the Rie Bloomfield series, events are (in 2009) Brian Campbell of Lawrence on October 13, Anna Myeong of Lawrence on November 10, (in 2010) Michael Bauer of Lawrence on February 2, and Ludger Lohmann of Stuttgart, Germany on March 23. These recitals start at 7:30 pm and have a small admission charge.

    In addition, on February 16, 2010 at 7:30 pm, Professor Davis will perform a faculty recital.

  • Wichita tea party highlights

    Here’s some video from the Wichita tea party held on Independence Day in 2009. Joseph Ashby is the speaker.

    Update: See more of Joseph’s speech by clicking on his YouTube channel.

  • In Kansas, is the problem spending or revenue?

    Does Kansas have a spending problem or a revenue problem?

    One thing is for certain: spending in Kansas, as in many states, has risen rapidly in recent years. Tax revenue has too — until recently. Americans For Prosperity — Kansas explains and illustrates the present budget situation in Kansas.

    Kansas State Spending Policy Primer April 2009

    Kansas State Spending: A Policy Primer April 2009 Kansas Government is out of money. There are now no more hidden funds or accounting tricks that can hide this fact. How did Kansas get put in this spot, was it a tax revenue problem or a spending problem? The chart to the right tracks State General Fund (SGF) tax receipts growth since 1999. Contrary to what many are suggesting, does this look like a state has seen a “crash” in tax revenue? Since 2002, SGF tax receipts have increased almost $2 billion; this is an increase of 38%. As recently as FY ’05, revenues were $4.8 billion and now as revenues are projected to run $5.38 billion for FY 2010, despite those who seem to believe that the state is hemorrhaging tax revenue. (If you add in federal stimulus money, then FY 2010 revenue is $5,777) The “massive budget shortfall” may make for great press, but consider that revenues are still projected to be flat from FY ’08 to FY ’09. If you include Federal Economic Stimulus Legislation (red line on chart) that Kansas is As the chart to the right shows, spending is at the heart of the fact that the state is now out of money. As tax revenues grew leaps-and-bounds from 2002, state spending kept up right along with it. However, as tax revenue growth began to flatten (as it always eventually does), note that spending kept right on increasing. SGF spending increased 48% from 2004 to 2008 while inflation during the same time was only 13% and population is increasing less than ½ of 1% a year (.45% annual). Now Kansas, one of only four states without a rainy day fund, is facing a situation where spending has outpaced receipts and we did not put any money “in the bank” to help weather this type of financial storm. SGF Tax Receipts Since 1990 SGF Tax Receipts and Expenditures (more on reverse) Americans for Prosperity-Kansas 2348 SW Topeka Blvd., Ste. 201, Topeka, KS 66611? 785-354-4237, 785-354-4239 (fax) 800 E. 1st, Ste. 401, Wichita, KS 67202? 316-269-4170, 316-269-4176 (fax) info@afpks.org Education has been a huge beneficiary of the massive spending increase Kansas has experienced. As this chart shows, Education spending has increased over $1 billion since 2003, despite student enrollment that statewide is flat. For example, in the states largest school district, USD 259 (Wichita), student enrollment since 2003 has decreased by 201 students. How many chances do they need? The Governor and Legislature have had many opportunities over the last several years to avoid this problem we face. For example, since just 2004: • • • As revenues continued to rise, surplus monies should have been put in a rainy day fund for use in more difficult budget times. As revenues began to flatten in ’07-‘08, increased spending should have been reduced (not cut!) just “less of an increase” to match revenues, not outpace them. This was not done. As far back as 2007, Legislative Research has been predicting what has just happened for FY 2010. In a memo dated 5/2/2007, Legislative Research predicted that by FY 2010, the state’s ending balance would be $-272 million. As it turns out, they were right about the potential negative ending balance, they just underestimated its size. What Happened to the Budget Surplus Still no Solution According to Legislative Research, Kansas ended FY 07 with $934 million in reserves. It is now projected that Kansas will end FY 09 with $29 million in reserves. That means the Governor and Legislature spent OVER $900 MILLION MORE THAN THEY TOOK IN during just two fiscal years. To put it another way, Kansas increased its budget $900 million in two years, but did it by draining the savings account to almost zero, instead of using income tax dollars. If we had just spent what the state took in tax receipts, we could enter this 2010 shortfall with over $900 million. This is why we have a problem, spending more than we took in from FY 07-09 and nothing else. You might think that with the Governor and Legislature in the midst of this deepening fiscal crisis, they would be working on crafting a longer-term solution to our budget problems. This would be wrong. A memo dated April 5, 2009 from Legislative Research shows that the current path the Legislature is taking is only a temporary fix. According to Kansas Legislative Research, the estimated FY 2011 ending balance will be $-240 million and the FY 2012 deficit will be $-822 million! This means despite all the talk of “serious cuts” that will “balance our book” the Legislature still has Kansas on a path that is estimated to spend over $1 billion more than we take in starting the with just the next Legislature’s budget, FY 2011.

  • Williams — King — Minnesota Guys connection raises concern

    There’s a triangle of influence and connections that should raise flags of caution as voters decide the makeup of the Wichita city council.

    At the center is Beth King, a Wichita public relations executive. She’s well known in city hall, having managed the mayoral campaign of Carl Brewer in 2007. She’s said to be a close advisor to him. Her name is so familiar that when her emails are forwarded among department heads in city hall, she’s referred to as simply “Beth.” No last name is necessary.

    The connection that voters should be aware of is this: King is the campaign manager for Lavonta Williams, who is seeking election to the district 1 council seat she holds after being appointed to fill the remainder of Brewer’s term after he was elected mayor.

    King is also the public relations consultant for Real Development. This firm — best known for its principals the “Minnesota Guys” — is a beneficiary of Wichita taxpayer dollars in the form of TIF districts and facade improvement loans paid back by special tax assessments.

    Lavonta Williams voted for each of the programs the Minnesota Guys wanted. Enthusiastically.

    The Minnesota Guys will be asking for more TIF financing, according to Wichita Eagle reporting.

    Lavonta Williams, should she be elected to a new term on the council, will be voting on whether to give the Minnesota Guys access to more Wichita taxpayer funds.

    Who will advise Williams how to vote? Beth King, her campaign manager, with financial ties to the Minnesota Guys?

    It’s a relationship too close for taxpayer comfort.

  • Toward a Free America

    As our country works its way through a period of turmoil, we must remember that there is another way than what those on the left and right propose. That way, the way of liberty, is the subject of For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, by Murray N. Rothbard. (The book is available to read online in pdf format here.)

    From the book’s description at the Ludwig von Mises Institute: “In For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Rothbard proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the two major political parties, the ideologies they embrace, and their central plans for using state power against people. Libertarianism is Rothbard’s radical alternative that says state power is unworkable and immoral and ought to be curbed and finally overthrown. To make his case, Rothbard deploys his entire system of thought: natural law, natural rights, Austrian economics, American history, the theory of the state, and more.”

    Here’s the final passage from this outstanding book:

    Toward a Free America

    The libertarian creed, finally, offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Even more than conservatives, who are often attached to the monarchical traditions of a happily obsolete European past, libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy. Libertarians are the only genuine current heirs of Jefferson, Paine, Jackson, and the abolitionists.

    And yet, while we are more truly traditional and more rootedly American than the conservatives, we are in some ways more radical than the radicals. Not in the sense that we have either the desire or the hope of remoulding human nature by the path of politics; but in the sense that only we provide the really sharp and genuine break with the encroaching statism of the twentieth century. The Old Left wants only more of what we are suffering from now; the New Left, in the last analysis, proposes only still more aggravated statism or compulsory egalitarianism and uniformity. Libertarianism is the logical culmination of the now forgotten “Old Right” (of the 1930s and ‘40s) opposition to the New Deal, war, centralization, and State intervention. Only we wish to break with all aspects of the liberal State: with its welfare and its warfare, its monopoly privileges and its egalitarianism, its repression of victimless crimes whether personal or economic. Only we offer technology without technocracy, growth without pollution, liberty without chaos, law without tyranny, the defense of property rights in one’s person and in one’s material possessions.

    Strands and remnants of libertarian doctrines are, indeed, all around us, in large parts of our glorious past and in values and ideas in the confused present. But only libertarianism takes these strands and remnants and integrates them into a mighty, logical, and consistent system. The enormous success of Karl Marx and Marxism has been due not to the validity of his ideas — all of which, indeed, are fallacious — but to the fact that he dared to weave socialist theory into a mighty system. Liberty cannot succeed without an equivalent and contrasting systematic theory; and until the last few years, despite our great heritage of economic and political thought and practice, we have not had a fully integrated and consistent theory of liberty. We now have that systematic theory; we come, fully armed with our knowledge, prepared to bring our message and to capture the imagination of all groups and strands in the population. All other theories and systems have clearly failed: socialism is in retreat everywhere, and notably in Eastern Europe; liberalism has bogged us down in a host of insoluble problems; conservatism has nothing to offer but sterile defense of the status quo. Liberty has never been fully tried in the modern world; libertarians now propose to fulfill the American dream and the world dream of liberty and prosperity for all mankind.

  • Wall Street Crisis Fruit of Government, Not Free Markets

    Radley Balko writing about the activities of the United States Government in Reason Magazine:

    Many commenters have blamed all of this on capitalism. This isn’t capitalism. It’s a peculiar kind of corporatist socialism, where good risks and the resulting profits remain private, but bad risks and the resulting losses are passed on to taxpayers. There’s nothing free-market about it.

    Also: Bailout plan splits free-market backers

  • Another Funny Wichita School Bond Issue Cartoon

    Helen Cochran of Citizens for Better Education has released another political cartoon whose topic is the Wichita school bond issue.

    Click here to go to CBE’s website and see the first cartoon.

  • Featured thoughts

    Government is essentially the negation of liberty. — Ludwig von Mises

    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

    As the coercive power of the state will alone decide who is to have what, the only power worth having will be a share in the exercise of this directing power. — F.A. Hayek

    This was all before politicians gave us the idea that the things we could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively through the magic of government. — Thomas Sowell

  • A Few Random Quotes

    Barbra Streisand told Diane Sawyer that we’re in a global warming crisis, and we can expect more and more intense storms, droughts and dust bowls. But before they act, weather experts say they’re still waiting to hear from Celine Dion.
    — Jay Leno

    The great virtue of free enterprise is that it forces existing businesses to meet the test of the market continuously, to produce products that meet consumer demands at lowest cost, or else be driven from the market. It is a profit-and-loss system. Naturally, existing businesses generally prefer to keep out competitors in other ways. That is why the business community, despite its rhetoric, has so often been a major enemy of truly free enterprise.
    — Milton Friedman

    It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody’s role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.
    — Albert Shanker, former President of the American Federation of Teachers [1989]

    It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.
    — Fredrich August von Hayek

    A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
    — G. Gordon Liddy

    Increasingly, it seems that the biggest difference between conservatives and “liberals” is that the conservatives know government is force. But that doesn’t stop them from using it.
    — John Stossel

    One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.
    — P.J. O’Rourke

    There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as “caring” and “sensitive” because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he’s willing to try to do good with other people’s money. Well, who isn’t? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he’ll do good with his own money — if a gun is held to his head.
    — P.J. O’Rourke