Category: Wichita news media

In his Wichita Eagle titled Taxpayer watchdog seems to target city, columnist Mark McCormick asks “What does Karl Peterjohn have against Wichita kids?”

His basis for asking, as developed in the column, is that since Karl Peterjohn, head of the Kansas Taxpayers Network (and now Republican nominee for the Sedgwick County Commission) opposes a bond issue for the Wichita public school district, but hasn’t opposed bond issues for surrounding suburban school districts, he must hate Wichita kids.

Now when McCormick criticizes Peterjohn — and this has happened a few more times since this June 11 column — the columns are full of phrases like “It is difficult not to like Peterjohn …” and “He’s one of the most pleasant people I deal with regularly.”

Why McCormick includes material like this is beyond me, especially when he omits something he surely knows. This fact provides an answer to the question posed, whether Peterjohn hates Wichita kids: Karl Peterjohn has two young children who attend Wichita public schools.

In the article Allison to be interim director of WSU economics center, the Wichita Eagle again reveals bias in its business reporting.

Here, in reporting on the appointment of an interim director for Center for Economic Development and Business Research (CEDBR), at Wichita State University the reporter states “The center, part of the W. Frank Barton School of Business, conducts high-quality research on issues related to the area’s economy.” Whether the center’s research is “high-quality” is open to dispute.

In Arenas’ Financial Statements Not Complete we learn that when preparing a study used to support the downtown Wichita arena, the Center for Economic Development and Business Research was not aware of an important government accounting regulation: “My investigation and a series of email messages with Mr. Ed Wolverton revealed that the WSU center that prepared the estimate of profitability for the proposed downtown arena wasn’t aware that the county would be required to calculate depreciation expense.”

On the same issue, in WSU Study on Downtown Wichita Arena Not Complete, we learn that the center did not investigate the substitution effect surrounding the arena simply because there wasn’t time.

In the article Stretching Figures Strains Credibility I explain how the center exaggerates the economic impact of the Wichita Airport.

In 2008, the center released a report which touted the purported economic benefit of the Wichita school district and its spending. Several of its problems are explained in Wichita School District Economic Impact. This report, bought and paid for by the client, presents the benefit of the district’s spending without considering its cost, nor does it explore whether alternative uses of this spending would be more highly-valued. These two omissions render this report nearly worthless.

Hopefully the new director of this center will stop producing reports like these.

An article in the June 19, 2008 Wichita Eagle (Many businesses owners say they carry too much of local tax burden) provides an example of the frequently-expressed bias against individuality and markets, and in favor of government and its institutions.

The article, which presents much useful information, unfortunately contains this sentence: “Needless to say, taxes are essential to running the government, which provides the necessary public safety, infrastructure, education and regulation that makes business possible.”

The writer’s (reporter Bill Wilson) bias, and presumably his editor’s too, is plain to see: without government, none of the things mentioned would exist, at least not in a way that makes business possible. Starting the sentence with the idiom “needless to say” tells us that the writer believes the claim made in this sentence is self-evident and obvious.

Consider education, however. Many parents have made the decision that the product the government, or public, schools provide does not meet their needs. Through private efforts they provide very nicely for the education of their children. Further, since this article focuses on business, it is often businesses that are most critical of the quality of education that the public schools provide.

The bias in favor of government regulation needs examination. The article “Private Food Standards Gain Favor” (March 11, 2008 Wall Street Journal) starts with this: “Amid growing fears about food safety and impatience with government response, standards set by the private sector in Europe are starting to spread to other parts of the world, including the U.S.” The article describes GlobalGap, a firm that sells its private inspection services to grocers and restaurants like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s.

So what is the difference between private and government food inspection? When government food inspectors fail and people become ill or die from tainted food, politicians will inevitably say the inspecting agency was under-funded, and more money must be spent. But if a grocery store stakes its reputation on the fact that its produce is inspected by a private firm with high standards, and that inspection turns out to be faulty and tainted food slips by, the grocery store is likely to fire the inspection company. This is precisely the opposite outcome from the failure of government inspectors and regulators. Which would you rather trust to keep your food safe?

Even items that seem, by the conventional wisdom of today, to be solely the function of government can be provided by markets without government intervention. Can fire and police protection be provided through private efforts without government? Streets and highways? Writers like Murray Rothbard have made the case. The website of the Ludwig von Mises Institute is an excellent place to read about these ideas.

The difference between government and markets is the difference between coercive force and peaceful cooperation. Why would anyone prefer the former?

I received this analysis and commentary from a friend of mine. It concerns an article that appeared on the front page of The Wichita Eagle a few months ago. I have removed mention of specific names.

I was appalled to read the front page editorial that appeared above the fold on the front page of the April 22, 2007 Wichita Eagle. Let me count some of the egregious flaws in this article:

1) The article mentions the “…a drop off of $185 million…” in state revenues but does not mention the primary reason. Let me provide it: “The new legislation setting aside $122.7 million for the school finance ‘lock-box’ and $80 million for statewide maintenance and disaster relief is primarily responsible for the large adjustment to this (revenue) source.” (source: April 19, 2007 Kansas Legislative Research State General Fund receipt revisions for FY 2007 and FY 2008, page 5). This point alone deserves a correction.

There’s $202.7 million that explains the main reason for this drop off. The money is being spent on increased state spending programs. Add to this the money that was shifted out of the general fund and over to the highway fund, “…enacted in 2004 for the Comprehensive Transportation Program reducing the amount of sales and use tax receipts deposited directly into the SGF (state General Fund)…” (ibid, page 1).

What was neglected in this article was the fact that Governor Sebelius and many legislative spending advocates want even more spending in both the current and next fiscal years. Last week Governor Sebelius proposed a $54 million increase in the current fiscal year plus $146 million in FY 2008 that begins July 1. That salient fact was missing in this article.

2) You repeat the lie that the tax cuts in 1997 and 1998 led to dramatic declines in state revenues leading to spending “cuts.” That did not occur. State General Fund expenditures in FY 2000 (1999-2000) were 4.1% above the previous year’s levels when the last of the 1995, 1997, & 1998 tax cuts phased in. The state ran into budget problems as part of the 2001 recession and the negative economic impact of the September 11 atrocities. These events were separated by several years. I have the FY 1999, 2000, 2001, & 2002 budgets if you need to revisit that fiscal history.

If you will look at past state budgets, the state has increased spending every year from 1993 to 2002. There was a decline that started during the recession in 2001 and the other events of that terrible year but this commentary tying the 1998 tax cuts to a budget shortfall four years later needs to be part of Brownlee’s operation on the editorial page and not on the news pages.

3) The tiny tax cut enacted this year at $36 million (ibid, page 1) is magnified by stretching this out over five years. This 2007 tax cut is slightly more than 1/2 of 1 percent of the state’s general fund spending this year.

If you used the same measuring tools the state’s spending it total in the billions on top of the total state spending (All Funds budget) that will far exceed $60 billion over five years (I can inflate these numbers the same way [the reporter] did, but I don’t have a front page position to have my commentary appear).

[The reporter’s] article does provide some of the numbers so I could calculate the five year phase out of the franchise tax is $135 million (I did that addition) and the total for the social security tax cut over five years is only $56.9 million.

That’s a total of only $191.9 million. Where’s the other tax cuts to get to $570 million total this commentary claims? Where’s the rest of the $378 million?

This editorial commentary then ignores the earned income tax credit hike that was part of this legislation. The EITC is where the Dept. of Revenue ships tax funds out to low income Kansans. Critics view it as welfare using the tax code since these folks have no Kansas personal income tax liability. That welfare style tax break was raised a little over 13 percent in this bill.

I can only guess that the “…$570 billion in lost revenue…” must also include the unemployment tax reduction too. That would be the largest single item bulk of the “reduction.” Based on the rest of the figures you cite, the EITC would then be the next largest, if the social security reduction has only a $5.4 million price tag in 2008.

Left wing spending advocates pulled this stunt back in the 1990’s to try and magnify the size of the tax reductions during the 5 year unemployment tax moratorium from 1995-1999. Fortunately, unemployment taxes can’t be shifted into the state’s general fund budget. The mainstream Kansas press largely swallowed this as did [the reporter’s] article, “…Gov. Bill Graves responded with record-setting tax breaks–an estimated $4 billion during Graves’ eight-year administration.”

Sorry: That’s $500 million a year in annual tax cuts. Graves’ first budget was FY 1994 and Gen. Fund spending was $3.111 billion. By FY 2002 Graves budget had grown to $4.466 billion or 43% increase (KS Fiscal Facts 2006, p. 23). How did these “cuts” reduce state revenues and spending? The single largest item in these calculations was the unemployment tax moratorium enacted in Graves first year as governor and excluded from the General Fund. Including this figure misleads your readers.

If you wanted to be more accurate you could point out that in nominal dollar terms Kansas had its first $3 billion General Fund Budget in 1994 and stands a good chance of enacting its first $6 billion General Fund budget for FY 2008 depending upon what the legislature does in their 2007 wrap up/veto session. That would be close to a 100% hike in nominal dollar terms.

Or you might point out that the state had its first All Funds budget exceeding $6 billion (including Medicaid and highway programs) in FY 1994 and has gone over $12 billion in the current fiscal year. Even adjusted for inflation, state spending is soaring in Kansas.

The Eagle hasn’t reported that the Tax Foundation’s latest ranking of state and local taxes as a percentage of income ranked us 15th highest among the 50 states earlier this month. That is where this state’s economic problem lies. Not with your unsourced commentary, “…lawmakers…wonder whether it’s a road map back to the budget crisis of the early 2000s, when tax cuts took effect just before a downturn in the economy and left the state scrambling to provide vital services.”

I guess that is fine in editorial commentary but it should be forbidden in news stories. Or, perhaps you could find some legislator or other elected official to make this type of assertion.

Let me add, that despite [my organization] and my best efforts, a sizable portion of the property tax cuts enacted in 1997-98 at the state level never got to taxpayers. They were grabbed by local units who raised their property taxes to offset the state reductions. So, much of the “tax cuts” never got back to the folks who paid them.

This commentary should have appeared on the editorial page. The only useful point in this piece was Rep. Jim Ward’s (D-Wichita) statement that “…We spent it…”

From Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

State Senator Peggy Palmer, R-Augusta has publicly announced that she has canceled her Wichita Eagle subscription in the wake of the controversy over the Wichita Eagle’s “news” coverage of today’s election.

I have just received a second legislative email from another legislator who has told me that this legislator’s Eagle subscription is now history too. I have asked this legislator by email whether or not they would like this to be added to the public record.

In addition, Democratic candidate for the Kansas House of Representatives in the 87th district in east Wichita Rajeev Goyle has posted on his web site that he is a former Wichita Eagle employee. This is surprising news that should have been included in the Wichita Eagle’s news coverage of the legislative race. It is an outrage that this Eagle connection was not mentioned. Goyle’s Eagle ties should have been mentioned in both the news as well as in the Eagle’s editorial endorsement of Mr. Goyle.

Internet reports today indicate that Goyle was campaigning outside a voting location and confronted by a prominent GOP attorney there. That type of electioneering would certainly violate a number of election laws but he is a liberal so this trangression will probably get memory hole treatment.

What other salient facts about the candidates have not been reported? Here is another fact.

I have yet to hear any of the Wichita news media report about Phill Klines numerous endorsements by law enforcement professionals and organizations when these endorsements occurred……months ago.

It was unintentionally hilarious to hear KNSS try to report that one of the 89 sheriffs who had endorsed Kline was withdrawing his endorsement without mentioning the other 88 last week. That 88 included a majority of the Democratic Sheriffs in Kansas too.

If that would have been Morrison receiving 89 endorsements from law enforcement, that would have been front page, above the fold news. I can see the headlines, “Morrison endorsed by GOP sheriff’s”.

How many sheriffs endorsed Morrison? Is it a number greater than zero? I will never know by reading the Eagle.

A couple of weeks ago there was a national report about declining newspaper circulation. All but a few of the major newspapers including my personal favorite, the Wall Street Journal and their outstanding editorial page, reported circulation declines. The Wichita Eagle was too small to be listed in this story but a KC friend reported that the sister KS newspaper in the McClatchy chain, the KC Star, lost 5% and 4% respectively on their Sunday and daily editions in this latest report. That’s similar to circulation declines at other left wing daily newspapers like the Washington Post and NY Times.

I received this commentary from a person who believes he noticed some bias in reporting appearing in The Wichita Eagle.

… I visited with Eagle writer Dion Lefler regarding the language he used to describe the Sedgwick County Commission meeting the day after Sedgwick County Commissioners voted 5 to 0 to raise the mil levy. I told him politely that I had a “bone to pick” with him regarding the semantics he used in that article when he referred to our group as the “anti-tax group”. I said to him, “Whenever you use the word to describe any group as “anti” you automatically send a negative message to your readers that actually shows your personal “bias” against that particular group.” I pointed out that we are not “anti” anything, but on the contrary we are taxpayer advocates and perhaps should be referred to as the “pro-taxpayer group” or the “taxpayer advocate group”.

I asked him why he did not refer to our opponents at the hearing as the “anti-taxpayer group”. If he had done that in his article, perhaps he could have achieved the “balance” that newspapers try to achieve. He could then rightly refer to our lower tax and less government taxpayer advocate group as the “antitaxers” and our opponents, the more government and higher tax advocate group, as the “antitaxpayers.”

I pointed out to Dion that our opponents who spoke at the hearing were primarily two groups. One group represented primarily government staff people who wanted their particular program funded and their well-scripted clientele who spoke of their need and dependence on government programs to help them with their alcohol, depression, drug, mental, or senior problems. The other group wanting additional taxpayer money were six figure executives from the aircraft industry dressed in their suits and ties begging for additional largess from the public treasury (“corporate welfare”) for an industry that already receives massive taxpayer subsidies. Our group, the “taxpayer advocate group” was speaking for thousands of property taxpaying people (“widows and orphans included”) who were not present and who were not represented particularly by the people that they elected to represent them.

Dion admitted that he saw my point and that he would take it into consideration in future reporting. I hope he was serious and follows through. I believe AFP, KTN, and other taxpayer advocacy groups need to take the lead in insisting on positive and balanced reporting rather than the biased and slanted work that we have unfortunately learned to tolerate as normal.