Voice For Liberty

Tag: Americans For Prosperity

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Thursday November 10, 2011

    Occupy Wall Street. One of the most troubling things about OWS is the anti-semitism. FreedomWorks has a video which explains. Also from FreedomWorks, president Matt Kibbe contributes a piece for the Wall Street Journal (Occupying vs. Tea Partying: Freedom and the foundations of moral behavior.). In it, he concludes: “Progressives’ burning desire to create a tea party of the left may be clouding their judgment. Even Mr. Jones has grudgingly conceded that tea partiers have out-crowd-sourced, out-organized, and out-performed the most sophisticated community organizers on the left. ‘Here’s the irony,’ he said back in July. ‘They talk rugged individualist, but they act collectively.’ He and his colleagues don’t seem to understand that communities can’t exist without respect for individual freedom. They can’t imagine how it is that millions of people located in disparate places with unique knowledge of their communities and circumstances can voluntarily cooperate and coordinate, creating something far greater and more valuable than any one individual could have done alone. In the world of the contemporary Western left, someone needs to be in charge — a benevolent bureaucrat who knows better than you do. They can’t help but build hierarchical structures — a General Assembly perhaps — because they don’t understand how freedom works.”

    Johnson Controls. Rhonda Holman’s recent Wichita Eagle editorial criticized those who spoke against the award of a forgivable loan to Johnson Controls, specifically mentioning the claim by Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau that Johnson was going to move these jobs to Wichita “no matter what.” No one has disputed Ranzau. I specifically asked at the commission meeting that someone from Johnson address this assessment. The Johnson people in the audience chose not to answer. It would be helpful if someone at the newspaper or county at least pretended as through they cared about the truth of these matters. … At one time newspapers might have objected to Commission member Jim Skelton voting on this matter due to a family member working at Johnson. True, Kansas law says he was eligible to vote on the matter. Sedgwick County has no code of ethics that prohibited it, either. But Skelton could have acted as though the county had a code of ethics, and a model code of ethics says Skelton should not have voted on this matter.

    Save-A-Lot store opens. Yesterday a Save-A-Lot grocery store opened in Wichita’s Planeview neighborhood. This is a store that was said to be impossible to build without subsidy in the form of tax increment financing (TIF) and an extra community improvement district (CID) sales tax of two cents per dollar. The Sedgwick County Commission exercised its veto power over the TIF district, and developer developer Rob Snyder canceled his plans for the store. But someone else found a way. Said Snyder at the time to the Wichita City Council: “We have researched every possible way, how do we make this project work with the existing funding that’s available to us. … We might as well say if for some reason we can’t figure out how to get this funding to go through, there won’t be a shopping center over there.” As part of his presentation to the council Allen Bell, Wichita’s Director of Urban Development explained that to be eligible for TIF, developers must demonstrate a “gap,” that is, an analytical finding that conventional financing is not sufficient for the project, and public assistance is required: “We’ve done that. We know, for example, from the developer’s perspective in terms of how much they will make in lease payments from the Save-A-Lot operator, how much that is, and how much debt that will support, and how much funds the developer can raise personally for this project. That has, in fact, left a gap, and these numbers that you’ve seen today reflect what that gap is.” … This episode has severely harmed the credibility of those who plead for incentives and subsidies, and also of the city hall bureaucrats who plead their cases for them. For more see For Wichita, Save-A-Lot teaches a lesson.

    Teacher pay. A look at public school teacher pay by American Enterprise Institute finds that — opposite of the myth spread by school spending advocates — teachers are paid much more than they could earn in the private sector. While teachers are paid less than private sector workers with similar college degree attainment, the course of study for teachers is less demanding than most other fields. Fringe benefits for teachers are much higher than for private sector workers. Job security, even in the face of recent layoffs, is much greater for teachers and has a value: “Consider that one-fifth of the highest-performing public school teachers in Washington, D.C., recently declined to give up even part of their job security in exchange for base salary increases of up to $20,000.” … The authors note the study is based on averages: “Our research is in terms of averages. The best public school teachers — especially those teaching difficult subjects such as math and science — may well be underpaid compared to counterparts in the private sector.” But teachers have formed unions that ensure that all teachers are paid the same without regard to ability. See Public School Teachers Aren’t Underpaid: Our research suggests that on average — counting salaries, benefits and job security — teachers receive about 52% more than they could in private business. … Naturally, the best way to set teacher salaries is through voluntary exchange in markets. That doesn’t happen with public school teachers.

    Ranzau, Skelton to speak. This week’s meeting (November 11th) of the Wichita Pachyderm Club features Sedgwick County Commission Members Richard Ranzau and Jim Skelton, speaking on “What its like to be a new member of the Sedgwick County Board of County commissioners?” The public is welcome and encouraged to attend Wichita Pachyderm meetings. For more information click on Wichita Pachyderm Club. … Upcoming speakers: On November 18th: Delores Craig-Moreland, Ph.D., Wichita State University, speaking on “Systemic reasons why our country has one of the highest jail and prison incarceration rates in the world? Are all criminals created equal?” … On November 25th there will be no meeting.

    Making economics come alive. On Monday November 14th Americans for Prosperity Foundation will show the video “Making Economics Come Alive” with John Stossel. Topics included in this presentation are Economics of Property Rights, Private Ownership and Conservation, Property Rights and the Status of Native Americans, Atlas Shrugged: Selfishness and the Economics of Exchange, Economics and the Military Draft, Regulation and Unintended Consequences, Regulation: Louisiana Florist, The Unintended Consequences of the Ethanol Subsidies, The Unintended Consequences of Minimum Wage Laws, Public Choice Economics and Crony Capitalism, Trade Restrictions and Crony Capitalism, Stimulus Spending and Crony Capitalism, and Political Versus Market Choices. This free event is from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Lionel D. Alford Library located at 3447 S. Meridian in Wichita. The library is just north of the I-235 exit on Meridian. For more information on this event contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net or 316-312-7335, or Susan Estes, AFP Field Director at sestes@afphq.org or 316-681-4415.

    Economics in two minutes. In two minutes, Art Carden explains the important ideas of economics in Economics on One Foot: “Individuals strive to achieve their goals in the best ways possible, every action has a cost, incentives matter, value is determined on the margin, profits and losses help gauge value creation and destruction, and government interventions often have unintended and undesirable consequences.” … This video is from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies, and many other informative videos are available.

  • Kerpen on Obama’s regulatory extremism

    In the introduction to his book Democracy Denied, Phil Kerpen gives us a history lesson on a topic that doesn’t receive much discussion in public: the grab for executive power by presidents through the use of “signing statements.”

    Elizabeth Drew made the case against Bush’s abuse of executive power in a lengthy New York Review of Books piece called “Power Grab.” She specifically highlighted Bush’s use of signing statements (a technique to object to elements of a law while signing it, and refusing to enforce those elements), the detention of foreign combatants at Guantanamo, and warrantless wiretaps. She concluded that Bush was a tyrant.

    Kerpen explains how the view from the oval office can make one forget campaign promises:

    Even the Bush practice that raised the most ire — the use of signing statements — was embraced by Obama just weeks after he took office, when he said: “it is a legitimate constitutional function, and one that promotes the value of transparency, to indicate when a bill that is presented for presidential signature includes provisions that are subject to well-founded constitutional objections.” Contrast that with what Obama had said about signing statements on the campaign trail: “This is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he is going along. I disagree with that. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We are not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end run around Congress.”

    Not that Obama alone takes criticism for exercising presidential power contrary to the actions of Congress, as he describes the auto industry bailout in the last days of the presidency of George W. Bush. A bill didn’t make it through Congress, but Bush “repurposed” TARP funds — intended for banks — and used them for an auto bailout in the amount of $17.4 billion.

    It is this use of executive power and agencies to bypass the will of people — as expressed through Congress — that is detailed in a book authored by Phil Kerpen and published this week: Democracy Denied: How Obama is Ignoring You and Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America — and How to Stop Him.

    Kerpen is Vice President for Policy at Americans for Prosperity, a national group that advocates for free markets and limited government at all levels. His website is philkerpen.com, and it features excerpts from the book along with a theatrical trailer.

    Kerpen explains the problem by describing a solution: The Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, or REINS Act. This proposed law would require any major regulatory action to be approved by Congress and receive the president’s signature. Kerpen writes: “We have regulators who are effectively writing and executing their own laws. The major policy decisions that affect every aspect of our economic lives are moving forward without consent of the people’s legitimately elected legislative branch.”

    The problem is that often Congress passes generic laws and leaves it to regulatory agencies to write the rules that implement the law. By requiring Congressional and Presidential approval of major regulations, agencies will be accountable to the current Congress, and lawmakers will have a chance to ensure that actual regulations are consistent with the intent of enabling legislation.

    Cap-and-trade energy legislation provides an example of Kerpen’s thesis, which is “how the Obama administration was disregarding Congress and the American people to accomplish its objectives through regulatory backdoors.” The legislation passed the House, but couldn’t pass the Senate. So what happened next? Kerpen explains Obama’s detour around Congress:

    Just to show you how unfazed the Obama administration was by the political defeat of cap-and-trade, consider what’s on page 146 of Obama’s 2012 budget: “The administration continues to support greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the United States in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% percent by 2050.” Those just happen to be the same levels required by the failed Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. Obama is telling the EPA to just pretend that the bill passed and regulate away.

    In fact Obama’s EPA was already moving full steam ahead to implement a global warming regulatory scheme that could even be more costly than cap and trade — without the approval of the American people and without so much as a vote in Congress.

    The remainder of the chapter details some of the ways EPA is accomplishing this backdoor regulation.

    The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, is another topic Kerpen covers where regulation is replacing lawmaking by Congress:

    Nancy Pelosi was right in more ways then she realized when she infamously said “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.” Not only was the more than 2,000-page bill negotiated in secret and so densely complex that few humans could understand it, it also deferred most of the really difficult and important decisions to the regulators, including dozens of brand-new boards, committees, councils, and working groups. So even after ObamaCare had been passed there was no way to know what was really in it until the bureaucracy was assembled and began issuing regulations.

    Kerpen describes the bill that passed as not “finished legislation,” and is now being interpreted by bureaucrats, the most powerful being HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Her office is now, according to Kerpen, “issuing a whole string of official guidelines and regulations that attempt to ‘correct’ the draft law, often by asserting things that the law doesn’t actually say.”

    Other chapters describe regulation of the internet (net neutrality), card check, the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, and energy regulation. All of these represent the Obama administration either ignoring Congress or creating vast new powers for itself. The chart Kerpen created shows the plays being made.

    Obama regulatory extremismKerpen’s chart of Obama regulatory extremism. Click for larger version.

    What about regulatory reform? Obama’s doing that. In January he wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “We’re looking at the system as a whole to make sure we avoid excessive, inconsistent and redundant regulation. And finally, today I am directing federal agencies to do more to account for — and reduce — the burdens regulations may place on small businesses.”

    In a chapter titled “The Back Door to the Back Door: Phony Regulation Reform” Kerpen explains that this promise or regulatory reform by the president is a sham. Kerpen describes the executive order that implements regulatory review this way: “The new executive order is the regulatory parallel to the Obama administration’s strategy on federal spending, which is to spend at astonishing, record rates and rack up trillions of dollars in deficits while paying lip service to fiscal responsibility by establishing a fiscal commission.”

    And in a gesture of true public service, Kerpen introduces us to Cass Sunstein, the man who is heading the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the agency that will be conducting the purported review of regulations. A quote from Sunstein: “In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?”

    Kerpen sums up Sunstein’s political philosophy of central planning:

    The idea of Sunstein’s “nudge” philosophy is that the fatal conceit of central economic planning can somehow succeed if it is subtly hidden from view. Sunstein thinks that if he imposes regulations that steer our choices instead of outright forcing them, he can achieve desirable social objectives. … Given Suinstein’s views and the central role he will have in reshaping federal regulation to be “more effective,” we need to be deeply concerned that any changes that come out of the process may make regulation less apparent, but no less costly — and more effective at crushing genuine individual choice and responsibility and substituting the judgment (even if by a nudge instead of a shove) of a central planner.

    The challenge, Kerpen writes in his conclusion to the book, “is to change the political calculus to elevate regulatory fights to the appropriate level in the public consciousness. We must make sure the American people understand that a disastrously bad idea becomes even worse when it’s implemented by backdoor, unaccountable, illegitimate means.”

    Kerpen recommends passage of the REINS Act as a way to restore accountability over regulatory agencies to Congress. The two messages Congress needs, he writes, are: “You can delegate authority, but you can never delegate responsibility,” and “If you fail to stop out-of-control regulators, voters will hold you accountable.”

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Monday October 10, 2011

    AFP meeting features former Congressman Tiahrt. Tonight’s (October 10th) meeting of Americans for Prosperity, Kansas features former United States Representative Todd Tiahrt speaking on “How regulations affect our economy.” There will be a presentation followed by a group discussion. Tiahrt represented the fourth district of Kansas from 1995 to 2011. He is presently our states Republican National Committeeman. … This free meeting is from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Lionel D. Alford Library located at 3447 S. Meridian in Wichita. The library is just north of the I-235 exit on Meridian. The event’s sponsor is Americans for Prosperity, Kansas. For more information on this event contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net or 316-312-7335, or Susan Estes, AFP Field Director at sestes@afphq.org or 316-681-4415.

    Government planning. In an address from 1995, Gerald P. O’Driscoll Jr. spoke on Friedrich Hayek and his ideas on government interventionism. His conclusion should be a caution to those — such as Wichita City Council members and city hall bureaucrats — who believe they can guide the economic future of Wichita through interventions such as TIF districts, grants, forgivable loans, tax credits, tax abatements, sweetheart lease deals, eminent domain, zoning, and other measures: “In all his work, Hayek focused on the self-ordering forces in society. Hayek’s fellow Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow has suggested that ‘the notion that through the workings of an entire system effects may be very different from, and even opposed to, intentions is surely the most important intellectual contribution that economic thought has made to the general understanding of social processes.’ The Arrovian formulation echoes Adam Smith’s observation that, as a consequence of the interaction of conflicting interests, man is ‘led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.’ The classic Hayekian statement visualizes economics as analyzing ‘the results of human action but not of human design.’ The economic conception of society is an affront to the conceit of those who would impose order from above. Economic forces defy the will of authoritarians seeking to mold social outcomes. Human beings respond to each government intervention by rearranging their lives so as to minimize its disruptive effects. The resulting outcome may thus be different from and even opposed to the intention of the intervention.” The full lecture is at The Meaning of Hayek.

    Longwell joins Democrats to defeat Republicans. While Wichita city council members are officially non-partisan — meaning they don’t run for election as members of political parties — most members are closely identified with a party. Some, like Jeff Longwell (district 5, west and northwest Wichita), see themselves as leaders in their parties, the Republican Party in this case. Last week, however, Longwell joined with the three Democrats on the Wichita City Council to oppose the votes of three Republicans. (There was a nuance to that vote, but nonetheless Longwell voted with the Democrats.) On Sunday he teamed with left-wing Council Member Janet Miller (district 6, north central Wichita) to write an op-ed that appeared in The Wichita Eagle (Grant helps region). The piece approved increased federal government spending, increased federal government control, and increased centralized planning.

    Optimal size of government. Is government too large? Yes, and trying to determine an optimum size for government is impossible. So says a new policy briefing paper from the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, a project of the Cato Institute.

    Can We Determine the Optimal Size of Government? by James A. Kahn. In the executive summary, we can read this: “The massive spending programs and new regulations adopted by many countries around the world in response to the economic crisis of 2008 have drawn renewed attention to the role of government in the economy. Studies of the relationship between government size and economic growth have come up with a wide range of estimates of the ‘optimal’ or growth-maximizing size of government, ranging anywhere between 15 and 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

    This paper argues that such an exercise is ill conceived. Modern growth economics suggests, first, that government policies leave their long-term impact primarily on the level of economic activity, not the growth rate; and, second, that the sources of this impact are multi-dimensional and not necessarily well measured by conventional measures of ‘size,’ such as the share of government spending in GDP.

    In fact, measures of economic freedom more closely relate to per capita GDP than do simple measures of government spending. The evidence shows that governments are generally larger than optimal, but because the available data include primarily countries whose governments are too large, it cannot plausibly say what the ideal size of government is. The data can realistically only say that smaller governments are better, and suggest that the optimal size of government is smaller than what we observe today.”

    Steve Jobs. What is his legacy? From Richard A. Viguerie: “Steve Jobs, Apple Computer’s late founder and CEO, gave the vast majority of his hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions to liberal Democrats, such as Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and California Governor Jerry Brown. Yet it is hard to think of a 21st Century entrepreneur who has done more to empower individuals and free them from the demands of the liberal collective than Steve Jobs did through the invention of the iPod, and iPad and the popularization of personal computing. Through the innovative products Apple brought to market, Jobs proved the collectivist premise of John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society to be both absolutely true and utterly wrong.” … More at Steve Jobs’ Conservative Legacy.

    Lieutenant Governor in Wichita. This week’s meeting (October 14th) of the Wichita Pachyderm Club features Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer, M.D. speaking on “An update on the Brownback Administration’s ‘Roadmap for Kansas’ — Medicaid Reform” … Upcoming speakers: On October 21st: N. Trip Shawver, Attorney/Mediator, on “The magic of mediation, its uses and benefits.” … On October 28th: U.S. Representative Tim Huelskamp, who is in his first term representing the Kansas first district, speaking on “Spending battles in Washington, D.C.” … On November 4th: Chris Spencer, Vice President, Regional Sales Manager Oppenheimer Funds, speaking on “Goliath vs Goliath — The global battle of economic superpowers.” … On November 11th: Sedgwick County Commission Members Richard Ranzau and James Skelton, speaking on “What its like to be a new member of the Sedgwick County Board of County commissioners?” … On November 18th: Delores Craig-Moreland, Ph.D., Wichita State University, speaking on “Systemic reasons why our country has one of the highest jail and prison incarceration rates in the world? Are all criminals created equal?”

    When governments cut spending. Advocates of government spending argue that if it is cut, the economy will suffer. Is this true? Is government spending necessary to keep the economy functioning? “There is no historical credence to this very popular idea that cutting spending now will actually slow down the economy and actually lead to a double dip recession or an increase in economic stagnation.” This is the conclusion of Dr. Stephen Davies in a short video. As one example — he cites others — Davies explains that there was fear in the United States that the end to massive government spending during World War II would lead to a return of the Great Depression. “In fact, as we know, exactly the opposite happened. As the defense spending of the war years was wound down, and as government was pulled back in other ways as well under the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, the result was an enormous period of sustained growth in the United States and other countries that went through a similar process.” Davies says that economic growth accelerates when government reduces its spending. Reasons include the greater productivity of private sector spending as compared to government spending, and increased confidence of private sector investors. … The video is from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday September 23, 2011

    Downtown Wichita site launched. As part of an effort to provide information about the Douglas Place project, a proposed renovation of a downtown Wichita office building into a hotel, a group of concerned citizens has created a website. The site is named Our Downtown Wichita, and it’s located at dtwichita.com.

    Keystone pipeline hearing, bus trip. On Monday the United States Department of State will hold hearings in Topeka concerning a proposed petroleum pipeline. Says Americans for Prosperity: “Our great country has an opportunity to complete a project that would provide billions of dollars in economic activity, create thousands of high-paying manufacturing and construction jobs, and at the same time take a significant step toward providing for greater U.S. energy security and independence. … Because the project originates in Canada and would provide a pipeline extension to the Gulf Coast, through Kansas, the project requires State Department approval. TransCanada owns the Keystone pipeline, which currently runs from Canada to Oklahoma. … It has finally received tentative approval from the Environmental Protection Agency and now sits before the State Department. The State Department is holding a hearing in Topeka on Monday, September 26th from noon to 3:30pm and 4:00pm to 8:00pm at the Kansas ExpoCentre, located at the corner of Topeka Blvd. and 17th Street South.” … To help citizens attend this unusual hearing, AFP has organized a free bus trip from Wichita. The bus will load from 7:30 am to 8:00 am at the Lawrence Dumont Stadium Parking Lot. It will return to Wichita around 7:00 pm. Lunch is provided. For more information on this event contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net or 316-312-7335, or Susan Estes, AFP Field Director at sestes@afphq.org or 316-681-4415.

    Health care reform. “Lt. Governor Jeff Colyer spent nearly two hours with the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Health Policy Oversight Monday explaining the imperative and complexity of solving problems with government health care he likened to a Rubik’s Cube. The challenge of the 1974 puzzle and the current Medicaid and health care debate is finding a way to align multiple facets of each side without upsetting another side.” More from Kansas Watchdog at Public Health Care System Reform a Governmental Rubik’s Cube .

    Pompeo defends against Obama’s attack on aviation. “Rep. Mike Pompeo (KS-04) spoke on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in defense of the general aviation community, which is so important to job sustainability and job growth in South Central Kansas.” Video from C-Span is at Pompeo House speech on aviation.

    Wichita corporate welfare opposed. This week the Wichita City Council granted another forgivable loan. Thank you to John Todd for appearing and offering testimony opposing the loan. In his remarks, Todd said: “Over the past few months, I have watched a majority of this council fall into the trap of trying to buy customer business with free-money economic development schemes out of the public treasury. This program might work if the public treasury held unlimited funds and the public gifts were offered to every business owner on an equal basis. … In 1887 President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill that would have given $10,000 for seed to farmers in drought-stricken Texas saying something to the effect that he could not be a party to taking money out of the treasury to benefit one group of people at the expense of another group, no matter how worthy the cause, stating that it is the responsibility of citizens to support the government and not the responsibility of government to support the people. Cleveland further issued a challenge for private charitable giving for the farmers. A number of newspapers adopted the relief campaign and in the end Americans voluntarily donated not $10,000 but $100,000 to the afflicted farmers. I would suggest a similar publicly driven voluntary relief campaign in lieu of the forgivable loan you are considering today to see if there is public sentiment to charitably fund this local economic development project.” … I’ve been told what the target company really needs is relief from a regulatory trap.

    The trap of job creation. Today on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal program, Rhone Resch of the Solar Energy Industries Association appeared. He promoted solar energy as great for creating jobs, telling viewers that solar energy creates more jobs per megawatt than any other form of power generation. This illustrates the trap that politicians and those who benefit from government subsidy usually fall into: that more jobs is a good thing. Wouldn’t it be much better if we could generate all the electricity we wanted using fewer jobs? Then these surplus employees could be put to work on something else — or simply enjoy leisure. … A few years ago an editorial written by a labor union official appeared in Kansas, praising the job-creating power of wind energy. In response, I wrote “After all, if we view our energy policy as a jobs creation program, why not build wind turbines and haul them to western Kansas without the use of machinery? Think of the jobs that would create.” … In a video produced by the Cato Institute, Caleb Brown explains the problems with relying on government and its spending for jobs: “Politicians and entrepreneurs face different problems. Entrepreneurs care about creating wealth, both for their customers and themselves. This means getting more output with fewer inputs. Politicians often care more about maximizing inputs like labor, even when that job creation could make all of us materially worse off. It would be easy for the president and Congress to create new jobs: They could simply ban the use of computers, farm machinery, or any other labor-saving device. But that would clearly raise prices … It’s hard to see how that improves anyone’s standard of living.”

  • The resolve of the Wichita City Council

    The Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman concedes that opponents of subsidy for Wichita hotel developers may prevail in a petition drive and possible special election, and remarks: “If so, they will have made an ideological point most people already agree with — that it would be best if developers paid for downtown development.” (Press ahead downtown, September 18, 2011 Wichita Eagle)

    Holman is referring to a refund of 75 percent of the transient guest tax that the hotel is seeking. This subsidy is estimated to be worth $134,000 per year for 15 years, or $2,010,000 in total.

    Despite her recognition of the will of the people, editorialist Holman encourages the Wichita City Council to proceed in a direction opposite. Settling for something other than the best, by her own admission.

    It’s the “reality,” Holman says. She trusts the arguments of developers who have a $15 million motive to gain various forms of taxpayer subsidy. She says there is presently “tight financing,” her contention being that developers can’t get loans for their projects.

    She may not be reading the reporting in her own newspaper. Recently the Eagle reported on the local lending situation: “Bankers said they want to make loans and would gladly do so, if companies wanted them. … Borrowers still have to have a business plan and creditworthiness. Demand has been way down.”

    Bankers will loan to creditworthy borrowers, says the Eagle. The reasonable conclusion is that the Douglas Place developers are not creditworthy. So, Holman wants the Wichita taxpayer to provide financing, and most of the city council is willing to buy these flimsy arguments.

    On Sunday evening, Council Member Michael O’Donnell (district 4, south and southwest Wichita) called into the Gene Countryman radio program. He said: “With the editorial that was in the paper today from Rhonda Holman, I was just shocked that she thinks that it would prevail, that Americans for Prosperity — their argument would prevail on the ballot. To me, that seems counter-intuitive, that means that the elected officials aren’t following what the will of the people is. And that’s why we’re sent to city council.”

    O’Donnell said that the Eagle “should be picking up on that part of this equation: that we are electing people that aren’t going with the mood of the voters.”

    He further explained that the Douglas Place developers now have a problem. If they proceed with the hotel project without receiving one of the subsidies they insisted they need — what does that say about their honesty and integrity? Were they asking for the subsidy simply because they thought the city would grant it?

    And if they can proceed without this subsidy, what about the other subsides? Are they truly necessary?

    If the city grants subsidies that turn out not to be necessary — as if any subsidy is really ever necessary — what does that say about our city bureaucratic staff, our mayor, and our city council?

    I think we know what it says. The campaign contributions given by these developers are a stain upon the reputation of Wichita.

    By the way, when someone says their opponents are “ideological,” immediately you know their arguments are weak. Merriam-Webster defines “ideology” as “1: visionary theorizing; 2a : a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture b: a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture c: the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.”

    The use of the term “ideological” is almost always used in a negative way, as Holman has done when referring to Americans for Prosperity. None of these things, however, are negative — unless they describe your political opponents. When Holman and most city council members believe that downtown development can happen only when propped up by taxpayer spending and subsidy, and believe that this is a good thing and a proper use of government: isn’t that an ideology?

  • Citizen activists launch protest petition in response to Wichita City Council vote on hotel development

    A press release from Americans for Prosperity, Kansas.

    For Immediate Release — Sept. 14, 2011
    Contact: Susan Estes, 316-681-4415

    WICHITA, KAN. — Despite hearing from numerous local residents speaking in opposition to the project yesterday, the Wichita City Council approved a number of public incentives for a hotel development in downtown Wichita. In response, the Wichita chapter of the grassroots group Americans for Prosperity plans to work to overturn part of the incentive package.

    “It’s apparent that a majority of Wichita City Council members don’t understand simple economics and are determined to continue hand-picking winners and losers in the marketplace,” said AFP-Kansas state director Derrick Sontag. “They hide under the guise of ‘job creation’ when in fact all they are doing is taking taxpayer money and using it against real job creators in the private sector — the ones who don’t rely on government handouts.”

    “But the real losers in this project are the people of Wichita, the majority of whom we believe do not approve of subsidizing a boutique hotel in downtown Wichita. The signatures gathered in our protest petition effort will represent citizens who for the most part are not able to attend city council meetings, but are voicing their disapproval of this type of taxpayer funded expenditure.”

    AFP’s Wichita group plans to launch an effort to overturn the council’s approval of a charter ordinance allowing the developer to use a special tax for its own purposes. The group will collect signatures on a protest petition, and will have 60 days after the charter ordinance’s final publication to gather the needed signatures to put a stop to the guest tax incentive.

    “Yesterday’s vote in the city council to approve public incentives for a private development was disappointing,” said AFP-Kansas Field Director and Wichita resident Susan Estes. “Thanks to this vote, Wichita taxpayers will be paying for a development that should be funded privately.”

    “And aside from our philosophical opposition to such a project, the proposal to refund 75 percent of the hotel’s guest tax simply turns the idea of taxation on its head. Taxation is a public function the government uses to pay for public services such as public safety, schools and infrastructure. However, in this case we are allowing private interests to use a public function for their own purposes.”

    Additionally, funneling 75 percent of a hotel’s guest tax back to it for its exclusive use is not compatible with current city policy, Estes said. According to a description of the Tourism and Convention Fund in the city budget, the goal of the guest tax is to “support tourism and convention, infrastructure, and promotion of the City.” Its outlined priorities are to be “debt service for tourism and convention facilities, operational deficit subsidies, and care and maintenance of Century II.”

    Upon successful completion of the petition, the city council could either vote to rescind the charter ordinance on the guest tax usage or hold an election so Wichita voters can decide on the matter.

    Residents will be able to learn more about what AFP is doing to keep taxpayer dollars out of private developer’s coffers and to join our efforts by visiting dtwichita.com.

    Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen-leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and intrusiveness of government is the best way to promote individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens to support restraining state and federal government growth and returning government to its constitutional limits. AFP is more than 1.7 million activists strong, with activists in all 50 states. AFP has 31 state chapters and affiliates. More than 85,000 Americans in all 50 states have made a financial contribution to AFP or AFP Foundation. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org

    Americans for Prosperity does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday September 9, 2011

    A citizen call to action. This month’s meeting of Americans for Prosperity, Kansas focuses on the Douglas Place project in downtown Wichita. Event organizers write: “On September 13, 2011 the Wichita City Council will be holding a public hearing to consider approval of millions of dollars of public incentives being offered to the downtown Douglas Place project developers. Monday’s meeting will have these topics: Learn about the incentive programs being offered. … Learn and consider getting involved in this issue as a citizen. … Consider testifying before the City Council. … Attend the council meeting to show your support for other speakers. … Please attend and participate in a group discussion to share ideas on how you can make a positive difference in local city government. … Presenters include Bob Weeks, Susan Estes, and John Todd.” This free event is Monday September 12th from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Lionel D. Alford Library located at 3447 S. Meridian in Wichita. The library is just north of the I-235 exit on Meridian. The event’s sponsor is Americans for Prosperity, Kansas. For more information on this event contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net or 316-312-7335, or Susan Estes, AFP Field Director at sestes@afphq.org or 316-681-4415.

    Troubles with Kansas City tax increment financing. I think the problems in Kansas City are larger than what we have in Wichita. But then, Wichita hasn’t relied on TIF as much as Kansas City has. But plans for the revitalization of downtown Wichita call for its expanded use. We need to be cautious, as Jon N. Hall explains in Creative Destruction in Kansas City?

    Effects of stimulus on hiring. A new paper from the Mercatus Center sheds light on the effects of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as ARRA, also known as the stimulus bill, and one of the first legislative initiatives by President Obama. “In an effort to boost hiring and job creation and to invest in a variety of domestic infrastructure programs, Congress passed and the president signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly known as the economic stimulus package, in 2009. ARRA represented one of the largest peacetime fiscal stimulus packages in American history. But little is known about the ways in which organizations and workers responded to the incentives created by the bill.” Among the report’s findings: “Hiring isn’t the same as net job creation. In our survey, just 42.1 percent of the workers hired at ARRA-receiving organizations after January 31, 2009, were unemployed at the time they were hired (Appendix C). More were hired directly from other organizations (47.3 percent of post-ARRA workers), while a handful came from school (6.5%) or from outside the labor force (4.1%)(Figure 2). Thus, there was an almost even split between “job creating” and “job switching.” This suggests just how hard it is for Keynesian job creation to work in a modern, expertise-based economy: even in a weak economy, organizations hired the employed about as often as the unemployed.” See Did Stimulus Dollars Hire the Unemployed? for the full report.

    Kansas education summit. On Thursday September 15th, Kansas Policy Institute is holding a summit on education in Kansas. In its announcement, KPI writes: “Kansas can expand educational opportunities for students in need — even in our current economic climate. Join a “Who’s Who” of the nation’s education reformers in a discussion on how Kansas can give every student an effective education. … Invited participants include Gov. Sam Brownback, the Kansas Department of Education, Kansas National Education Association, Kansas Association of School Boards, state legislators, and other public education stakeholders.” … KPI notes that we increased total aid to Kansas public schools by $1.2 billion between 2005 and 2011, that 25 percent of Kansas students are unable to read at grade level. The event will be held at the Holiday Inn & Suites, Overland Park West. The cost is $35, which includes breakfast and lunch for the all-day event. … RSVPs are requested. For more information, click on Kansas Policy Institute Education Summit.

    Why should conservatives like libertarian ideas? From LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies: “Are you a conservative? If so, Dr. Stephen Davies provides a few compelling reasons to consider libertarianism. For instance, conservatives tend to prefer institutions that have been tried and trusted, and want to maintain and uphold a traditionally established way of life. They also typically believe in an established or correct moral code. However, it does not logically follow that government should enforce all of these things. In fact, government enforcement of morals and traditions is often detrimental to both.”

  • Our Downtown Wichita launched

    As part of an effort to provide information about the Douglas Place project, a proposed renovation of a downtown Wichita office building into a hotel, Americans for Prosperity, Kansas has created a website.

    The site is named Our Downtown Wichita, and it’s located at dtwichita.com.

    Many people, myself included, feel that this project — with its multiple layers of taxpayer subsidy — represents crony capitalism at its pinnacle. It’s also the first project to come through Wichita’s Project Downtown evaluation process, which represents new advances in centralized government planning in Wichita.

    As the site’s motto says: “Limited government and free markets in Downtown Wichita benefit everyone. Centralized planning and crony capitalism benefit only a few.”

    The Our Downtown Wichita site contains information about the many forms of public subsidy that are proposed for the project. You’ll learn that public involvement is much more than what the City of Wichita claims in its presentations.

    You’ll also learn about the people involved in Douglas Place, including David Burk of Marketplace Properties and his misrepresentation of himself as an agent of the City of Wichita in order to cut his taxes.

    The site also contains a compilation of campaign contributions made to Mayor Carl Brewer and current city council members from people who will financially benefit from the Douglas Place project.

    Then, there’s suggestions as to how citizens can get involved if they are concerned about this project.

    The site also contains two videos by urban planning expert Cato Institute Senior Fellow Randal O’Toole made during his visit to Wichita last year.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday July 22, 2011

    Republican populism. Timothy P. Carney writing in Washington Examiner: “President Obama, ignoring his own calls to leave rhetoric at the door, has relied on populist demagoguery throughout the debt-ceiling negotiations. But given the President’s record of bailouts, his dedication to corporate-welfare handouts, and his calendar filled with $35,800-a-plate fundraisers, Republicans ought to take the populist cudgel from Obama and use it against Democrats.” Carney recommends: “Instead of trying to defend themselves against Obama’s misleading populism, Republicans ought to return fire with some sincere populism in this debt battle.”

    Cost of space shuttle. It’s a difficult question to answer, writes Carl Bialik in As Shuttle Sails Through Space, Costs Are Tough to Pin Down for The Wall Street Journal: “Some media outlets have pegged the total cost of the shuttle program, and its 135 launches, at between $115 billion and nearly twice that amount, demonstrating the challenge of tallying a bill over such a long time span.” Even at the lowest figure, that’s nearly $1 billion, or $1,000 million, per launch. In the early days of the program, Bialik writes, the cost of a launch was estimated at $7 million, and it was thought there would be weekly launches. … Me, I’m still waiting for lemon-flavored Tang.

    Raj Goyle spotted. Some have been wondering what former Kansas fourth district Congressional candidate Raj Goyle is doing these days, and this photograph gives us a clue. In the caption, Goyle is identified as Executive Director of the United Nations Office of Global Partnerships.

    Media Mogul Charged with First Degree Murdoch. Ann Coulter reminds us that outrage is surely in the eyes of the beholder, as she looks back at a Florida couple who were caught taping cell phone conversations for political purposes.

    Authority to adjust KPERS benefits. From Kansas Policy Institute: “There is a mounting realization that the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System (KPERS) is facing a crisis and there is a need for immediate reform. Legal Authority to Adjust State Pension Plans, a paper released earlier this week by KPI, outlines the legal history of modifying public pension benefits. Ralph Benko, a senior economic policy advisor to American Principles in Action, authored the paper and participated in a media conference call on July 12 announcing the paper’s release. An audio recording of that conference call is available here. … “Exorbitant retirement benefits are threatening the ability of states and municipalities to deliver essential government services, and, in up to 20 states and hundreds of municipalities, are threatening their very solvency,” writes Benko. “There is a widespread misunderstanding in many states that the U.S. Constitution prohibits [adjusting pension obligations], but there is no such prohibition.” … A full copy of “Legal Authority to Adjust State Pension Plans” is available here. … KPI President Dave Trabert added the following, “The simple reality is that KPERS faces an unfunded liability well beyond $7.6 billion. KPERS acknowledges an additional $1.7 billion of losses that aren’t yet reported and a more likely rate of return puts the true liability well closer to $14 billion. Many states are faced with the same problem, but Kansas is one of the worst. We can’t solve this problem without having the full knowledge of the possible solutions and that means an understanding of the legal framework as well. Ralph does a terrific job of demonstrating that the U.S. Constitution allows state pension obligations to be changed for ‘significant’ purposes to remedy an ‘economic problem.’ If Kansas isn’t facing a significant economic problem right now, then that definition is meaningless.”

    Should Kansas establish a health insurance exchange? A big part of the new national health care legislation is health care exchanges. Are these a good idea? From Americans for Prosperity, Kansas: “Beverly Gossage, research fellow with the Show-Me Institute, has helped pioneer health savings account policies for businesses in Kansas and Missouri and has testified on health policy bills before the Kansas and Missouri legislatures. She has explored the possibilities of ‘health insurance exchanges’ — or government clearinghouses for health care funds and programs — and has written about the likely consequences of these exchanges in the Sunflower State. … According to Gossage, a health insurance exchange in Kansas would simply result in more bureaucracy and higher insurance premiums, and would be a threat to the free market. We agree and encourage you to review the document as this will be an issue discussed by the Kansas Legislature later this year in an interim committee and during the 2012 Legislature.” … Gossage’s paper is at Should Kansas Establish a Health Insurance Exchange?.”

    A new day in politics? John Stossel writes about the new book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, both of Reason, the libertarian magazine of “Free Minds and Free Markets.” Ssays Stossel: “‘Independence in politics means that you can actually dictate some of the terms to our overlords,’ Welch and Gillespie write, adding that we need independence not just in politics but from politics. Welch said, ‘When we look at the places where government either directly controls or heavily regulates things, like K-12 education, health care, retirement, things are going poorly.’ … It’s very different outside of government where — from culture to retail stores to the Internet — there’s been an explosion of choice. ‘(Y)ou were lucky … 20 years ago (if) you would see one eggplant in an exotic store,’ Welch continued. ‘Now in the crappiest supermarket in America you’ll see four or five or six varieties of eggplant, plus all types of different things. … (W)hen you get independent from politics, things are going great because people can experiment, they can innovate. … We should squeeze down the (number of) places where we need a consensus to the smallest area possible, because all the interesting stuff happens outside of that.’” … Now Stossel’s television show dedicated to this topic and the book authors is available on the free hulu service.