Voice For Liberty

Category: Wichita Eagle opinion watch

  • Editorial Board Pen Names at the Wichita Eagle

    Some comment-writers to this blog make very good points that deserve more visibility. This is the case with the following comment left anonymously to the post In Wichita, let’s disclose everything. I mean everything.

    It looks like Wichita Liberty has broken another unreported story and has exposed the fact that a portion of the Wichita Eagle’s editorial board operates under a pen name.

    Perhaps “Ms. Holman’s” editorials should be placed next to the equally anonymous opinion line comments. I must note that the anonymous comments appearing in the Eagle are usually much more pointed than the signed editorial commentary.

    I wonder how conflicts of interest by employees and their families are handled by the newspaper? If “Ms. Holman” was married to a school administrator that might be a very useful fact to know when evaluating her credibility on government school spending issues.

    What if she was married to an attorney involved in suing the state over school finance? Full disclosure can lead into a number of interesting places.

    There was very little publicity provided to the very salient fact that the Wichita Eagle was a donor to the group backing the 2000 Wichita school bond issue with a sizable donation. I’ll have to ask Wichita Liberty to look into any news media contributions to either side of the 2008 Wichita school bond issue campaign.

    In response to the question posed at the end of this comment: The campaign finance report for groups involved on both sides of the Wichita school bond issue in 2008 showed no contribution by the Wichita Eagle.

    Is this issue of Rhonda Holman not using her real name a substantive issue? My name was in the Wichita Eagle quite a few times last year in my role as an opponent of the Wichita school bond issue. What would have been the Eagle’s response — in both the newsroom and editorial board offices — if I had used a pen name? What would the use of an assumed name indicated about my willingness to be held accountable for the things I said and wrote?

  • On the Wichita Eagle editorial board, partisanship reigns

    The Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman, writing for the editorial board in today’s lead editorial (Where do city, county stand on bond?) makes a few points that illustrate the highly partisan nature of this board.

    Here’s the first example. She complains about lack of transparency in knowing who is contributing to the campaigns for the Wichita school bond issue, writing “It’s frustrating that USD 259 voters must make a decision on the bond issue without knowing who funded the pro- and anti-campaigns. The three groups behind the campaigns could release their donor lists and amounts on their own prior to Election Day …”

    As reported recently by this writer in the post Wichita Eagle Political Contributions: This Year? the Eagle contributed to the pro-bond campaign in the year 2000, and never disclosed that fact to its readers.

    If Rhoda Holman is really interested in promoting transparency of campaign funding, her newspaper could start by stating whether it has made a contribution this year. She could reveal her own personal contribution too, or state that she hasn’t contributed.

    Then, Ms. Holman complains that a candidate for local office benefits from a campaign mailer mailed on the candidate’s behalf by a third party. She doesn’t like the fact that the organization that sent the mailing won’t have to disclose who paid for it, because it’s an educational effort, not an endorsement.

    The reason why it’s an educational effort is because it stops short of saying “vote for ____.” But if the voters get that message anyway, Ms. Holman says “mission accomplished.”

    Now if this situation sounds familiar, it should. This is very much the situation with the campaign surrounding the proposed Wichita school bond. In this case, USD 259 (the Wichita school district) undertakes an educational effort that has precisely the same characteristics of the effort that Ms. Holman complains about. But she conveniently overlooks this.

    There’s one difference, however. We know exactly who is funding the poorly-disguised campaign on behalf of the Wichita school district: taxpayers.

  • The Threat of Social Progressives

    In the July 5, 2008 Wichita Eagle, a Mr. Chet Syres of Hutchinson contributes a letter promoting the virtues of liberalism, proponents of which he now wants us to call social progressives.

    I remind Mr. Syres that leftists stole the terms “liberal” and “progressive” from the classical liberals. From For A New Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard:

    One of the ways that the new statist intellectuals did their work was to change the meaning of old labels, and therefore to manipulate in the minds of the public the emotional connotations attached to such labels. For example, the laissez-faire libertarians had long been known as “liberals,” and the purest and most militant of them as “radicals”; they had also been known as “progressives” because they were the ones in tune with industrial progress, the spread of liberty, and the rise in living standards of consumers. The new breed of statist academics and intellectuals appropriated to themselves the words “liberal” and “progressive,” and successfully managed to tar their laissez-faire opponents with the charge of being old-fashioned, “Neanderthal,” and “reactionary.” Even the name “conservative” was pinned on the classical liberals. And, as we have seen, the new statists were able to appropriate the concept of “reason” as well.

    In recent years, it is liberals themselves that have given their mis-appropriated term a bad name by advocating the policies that Mr. Syres now sells under a new name: social progressivism. Who could be against progress? Only Neanderthals, of course.

    But look under the covers. Does raising the minimum wage help those who its proponents want to help? For those lucky enough to retain their jobs after an increase in the minimum wages, yes. For those who lose their jobs, no. For those who have made their way through the public schools (the grand achievement of social progressives) without graining much in the way of skills, and therefore can’t find a job at the new higher wages, no. See Problem of Low Wages Not Easily Solved.

    Then there is Mr. Syres’ desire to tax the rich at higher rates, for they are not paying their “fair share.” Trickle-down economics does not work, he says. But the problem is that government can’t create wealth. All it can do is to transfer money from one person to another. Instead, it is people who create wealth and a higher standard of living, most often by accumulating and investing capital. The less capital there is to invest — and taxes reduce that — the less economic progress can be made. With less capital, workers have to dig ditches with shovels instead of power machines. Which would you rather work with? Who earns a higher wage, the man with a shovel, or the man operating a power backhoe? But without someone accumulating wealth and capital, there can be no backhoes, only shovels, and even they require the accumulation of some capital.

    Mr. Syres says he wants to promote “social justice” through charity implemented through legislation. Is progress made when voluntary charity is replaced by government programs, fed by taxation? Is progress made when the voluntary cooperation of free people trading in free markets is replaced by the heavy hand of government coercion? Of course not, except for those who believe that they know better than everyone else how things should be, and seek to implement their ideas through expanded government. These are the social progressives, and they are a threat to liberty and prosperity.

  • A Believer in Good Government Programs

    An audio version of this post is available here.

    A Mr. Greg Abbott of Clearwater, Kansas makes the case in the June 13, 2008 Wichita Eagle that there are many good government programs: the interstate highway system, the post office, the air traffic control system, police and fire departments, etc.

    I believe the writer makes a huge error in logic by assuming that because these programs exist and have been provided by government, then they are good things to have, and that these things can only be provided through government. To make this conclusion requires a huge leap and a good measure of misplaced faith in the institution of government.

    Many of the programs the writer cites as examples of good government programs are frequently criticized. The interstate highways in our nation’s cities are often congested to the point where loss of time spent stuck in traffic is a serious problem. Then there is the problem of safety of the nation’s highways, on which some 40,000 people die each year, and many more are seriously injured. Walter Block writes “As far as I am concerned, [these deaths are] taking place in spite of, not so much because of, the actions of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, despite their tendency to take credit for anything positive that happens on their watch, as do all statist agencies.” I recommend his article Deaths by Government: Another Missing Chapter.

    The post office? Do many people rely on the post office for delivery of critical shipments when private alternatives such as FedEx and UPS are available?

    As for flood control, the federal government’s flood insurance program, by suppressing signals that would be expressed in the price system as insurance premiums, if there was indeed a free market for such insurance, has lead to numerous deaths. Ask the residents of New Orleans how they feel about government levees and government flood insurance. See How Government Insurance Destroyed New Orleans.

    Need I continue? Each government program Mr. Abbott mentions has severe problems, and most crowd out efforts by private enterprise to provide alternatives.

    There is a truth in the writer’s letter in this sentence: “We need to wake up and realize that we all depend on the government.” That this is true is profoundly sad. Government, Mr. Abbott, operates through force and coercion. Wouldn’t it be better if we could solve problems and provide services through the voluntary cooperation of people?

  • No Government Trains, Please

    Part of the Wichita Eagle opinion watch series.

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

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

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

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

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

  • Investment in Wichita Public Schools

    Part of the Wichita Eagle opinion watch series. An audio broadcast of this article may be heard by clicking here.

    A letter writer in the April 27, 2008 Wichita Eagle makes the case that investment in USD 259 (the Wichita, Kansas public school district) has a good return.

    By way of comparison, the writer argues that the Wichita airport, having been built with public funds, represents “an investment return.” Whether it represents a good return on investment the writer doesn’t say, but I believe he means that the airport was a good investment of public funds.

    The mere fact that the airport exists, however, doesn’t prove a good return on investment. Since the airport is owned by government and doesn’t calculate its profit or loss in a competitive market, we can never know how wise is the “investment” made in the Wichita airport.

    Then the writer really gets off track. He speaks of “my own school bond issue within my family,” that being day care, preschool, K through 12, then a degree at the University of Kansas and a master’s degree. These activities are all voluntary choices that the writer and his family made. Taxation by the government, however, is not voluntary. The writer might also be reminded that it may be a voluntary choice to attend the University of Kansas, but the people of the State of Kansas have no choice but to fund its operations.

    Finally, the writer states “Some opponents of the school bond issue have even said the kids in USD 259 don’t need tornado shelters. That is ridiculous.” It is true that 60 schools in the Wichita school district don’t have safe rooms, and this situation is the result of decisions made by the school district and its board. They had an opportunity to build more safe rooms as part of the bond issue in 2000, but they decided to spend the money on other things. Similarly, each year the district has a large capital budget to spend, and each year they decide to spend it on things other than safe rooms. Blame for the lack of storm shelters, therefore, rests solely with the Wichita school district. They have decided that other things are more important.

  • Are Teachers Paid Fairly?

    Part of the Wichita Eagle Opinion Watch series. Audio is available here.

    The school bond issue in Wichita and those occurring in surrounding districts overlook one crucial necessity: a fair wage for teachers. They are critically underpaid for all levels of education, service and abilities. (From The Wichita Eagle Opinion Line, April 27, 2008)

    This writer is misinformed on several levels.

    First, bond issues such as the one proposed by USD 259, the Wichita, Kansas public school district, are usually reserved for capital expenditures, such as constructing buildings. Ongoing expenses such as salaries are not considered as part of a bond issue. The writer might also remember that in August 2007, the Wichita school district raised property tax rates to pay for an increase in teacher salaries.

    Then, who can determine what constitutes a “fair” wage? I know of no teachers who were forced to accept the jobs they filled. We can only presume that both the teacher and the school voluntarily entered into an agreement, with the wage to be paid as part of that agreement.

    But the issue might be a little more complex. For one thing, most public school teachers work under a collective bargaining agreement which specifies the wages to be paid for teachers, based on their length of experience and educational credentials. There is little or nothing that most teachers can do to escape that pay scale. It works both ways: there are excellent teachers who are underpaid compared to the value they generate through their efforts and skill. At the same time there are poor teachers who are overpaid when compared to good or average teachers.

    Related is the fact that public school teacher wages are not set in a free market by willing participants on both sides. Whenever teachers get a raise, it is inevitable that letter writers and opinion line callers will express outrage at having to pay for a raise in teacher pay. That’s characteristic of coerced transactions: many taxpayers don’t like to see their taxes go up. But that’s usually the only way that public school teacher pay can be raised.

    The public schools, also, have the same problem as does any public agency: they are not able to perform economic calculation to properly evaluate their use of resources. They are not able to calculate profit or loss, so we really don’t know if they use inputs — such as the taxpayer funds used for teacher salaries — wisely.

    Besides, the myth that teachers are underpaid relative to other jobs has been exposed for just that. Jay Greene, in the book Education Myths, reports that based on U.S. Department of Labor data for 2002, accounting for the number of hours worked, school teachers earned about $31 per hour. That is more than architects, economists, biologists, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and chemists.

  • Preserve farmland at what cost?

    A writer in the January 2, 2007 Wichita Eagle laments the loss of farmland to development, particularly residential homebuilding. The writer states that if farmland were preserved, Kansas could become more prosperous.

    There are two areas in which I believe this writer is mistaken. First, if the transaction between developer and farmer was voluntary, each is better off than they were before. The developer (and by extension the people he hopes to sell houses to) valued the land more than the farmer did. Otherwise, why would the transaction take place? These voluntary transactions that make both parties better off than before are the basis for the creation of wealth and prosperity.

    Second, farmers in Kansas produce so much output that they continually complain of the low prices they receive. Farmers tell us and Congress that if they don’t receive huge subsidies, they will go out of business. In 2005, farmers in Kansas received $1,056,866,760 in subsidy payments. This involuntary transaction reduces the wealth and prosperity of Kansas and the United States.