Voice For Liberty

Tag: Civil society

  • The Articulate Ignorance of Vivek Ramaswamy

    In David French’s op-ed titled “The Articulate Ignorance of Vivek Ramaswamy,” published on August 31, 2023, the author delves into the crisis of civic ignorance exacerbated by poor political leadership. French argues that civic ignorance is not a new phenomenon in America; however, it has reached a critical point due to the rise of leaders who not only perpetuate misinformation but also refuse to be held accountable for their actions. He cites historical data to show that Americans have long been uninformed about their own government and history, a situation that has worsened over the years.

    French uses the example of Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate, to illustrate how articulate yet fundamentally flawed leadership can mislead the public. Ramaswamy is described as a charismatic speaker who often makes statements that are either blatantly false or unworkable. Despite this, he has found success in the political arena, reflecting a broader issue where the public, already disconnected from political reality due to ignorance, is further misled by leaders who exploit this ignorance for their own gain.

    The author emphasizes that the problem is not just with individual leaders like Ramaswamy or Donald Trump but with a political culture that has abandoned the pursuit of truth. This creates a dangerous cycle where an uninformed public is unable to hold their leaders accountable, leading to a degradation of democratic values. French warns that the combination of civic ignorance, corrupt leadership, and partisan animosity is a ticking time bomb that threatens not just American democracy but the stability of the world.

    French concludes by stating that a democracy can only function effectively when it has an informed public and an honest political class. The absence of both puts the democratic experiment at risk, making the nation susceptible to conspiracy theories and divisive politics. The op-ed serves as a cautionary tale, urging both the public and the political class to recommit to the principles of truth and accountability.

    French, David. “The Articulate Ignorance of Vivek Ramaswamy.” The New York Times, 31 Aug. 2023.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/opinion/ramaswamy-political-ignorance.html

    Summary generated by ChatGPT

  • Business improvement district on tap in Wichita

    Business improvement district on tap in Wichita

    The Douglas Design District seeks to transform from a voluntary business organization to a tax-funded branch of government.

    Tomorrow the Wichita City Council will consider forming a business improvement district (BID) in east-central Wichita. Previously, city documents offered some explanation regarding the district: 1

    First, there already exists a voluntary organization: “The Douglas Design District (DDD) is a voluntary organization of over 300 local businesses located near Douglas Avenue between Washington Avenue and Oliver Avenue. In 2017, the DDD established a five-year strategic plan to become a financially self-sustaining organization that is not reliant on elective membership.”

    The purpose of a business improvement district: “A BID provides for the administration and financing of additional and extended services to businesses within the district and is funded by the City levying a mandatory service fee on the businesses within the district.”

    Who will collect, and who will spend? “While the City levies the service fee, it can contract with a third-party organization such as the DDD to operate the BID. The approach is similar to that used by the City to contract with the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation in downtown.”

    All this is repeated in the agenda packet for this week’s meeting. 2

    The action on the agenda this week finalizes the district’s funding mechanism: “The annual fee ranges from $100 to $550 depending on the size of the business and is anticipated to generate approximately $50,000 a year.” By size, the city means the number of square feet. If a business or property owner does not pay, the city may start collection activity, although what that means is unspecified: “If any delinquent Fee or penalty is not paid within sixty (60) days from the date on which the Fee or penalty became delinquent, the City may give notice to the business of its intention to initiate a collection action.”

    Are BIDs a good idea? Most information about them is provided by their boosters, that is, those who directly benefit from the service fee, which is really a tax. But there are some doubters. The New Republic, by no means a conservative publication, printed a piece arguing against BIDs, stating: “But too often BIDs have turned against the businesses they were meant to serve, making the cost of entry into a new area even higher for local merchants, or lacking the transparency needed to instill trust from the community.” 3

    A larger and more balanced look at BIDs comes from Washington Monthly in 2018:

    The privatized structure of BIDs may raise liberals’ hackles, but it’s clear that BIDs can be a useful tool to remake neighborhoods into places where people actually want to spend their time. Many big-city mayors — who are overwhelmingly Democratic — have thrown their weight behind them. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser recently doled out grants totaling $300,000 to five neighborhoods thinking about forming their own BIDs. (One of the grantees, Dupont Circle, with the decaying park, will start collecting taxes from business owners in the fall.)

    Still, there are real downsides to BIDs for renters and small business owners, who will not benefit from rising property values and may ultimately be pushed out of the area. Luckily, this isn’t a hugely difficult problem to remedy. The best, and easiest, way to revamp how BIDs are run is through city halls; they’re the ones who legislate what BIDs can and can’t do, while holding them accountable to the public. But too often, they renege on that responsibility. 4

    From Canada, harsh criticism:

    In this paper, we propose and develop the concept of “socio-economic hygiene” to denote the ways in which neoliberal Western urban space is spatially regulated and re-oriented towards consumption in a way that reinforces social exclusion. … We conclude by tracking how sociological strategies of “hygiene” have moved from racial and biological features to features of place and socioeconomic status, and how BIDs, resembling genocidal states in certain ways, use these strategies to continually justify their own existence. 5

    Civil society, or government?

    What should trouble everyone is the replacement of civil society with political society. Edward H. Crane explains: “There are basically only two ways to organize society: Coercively, through government mandates, or voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations. … In a civil society, you make the choices about your life. In a political society, someone else makes those choices.”

    Right now DDD is a voluntary organization. Civil society, in other words. But now it is proposed to replace it with political society.

    Why trade voluntary cooperation for the force of government? The annual report of the DDD (included in the city council agenda packet in 2018) explains: “Approximately 1/3 of businesses in DDD’s project area are DDD members yet ALL businesses benefit from DDD’s efforts. A BID eliminates this ‘free rider’ problem and, if implemented, would allow DDD to have a singular focus on implementing the BID business plan rather than always chasing membership.” For emphasis, the report notes: “THE PAYMENT OF THE BID ASSESSMENT WILL REPLACE MEMBERSHIP DUES.”

    Another term for chasing membership is selling your product by showing how it creates value. If the formation of the BID is successful, the Douglas Design District will be relieved of this necessity. Will having a guaranteed source of revenue make DDD more or less responsive to its members?

    Also, the DDD annual report states: “A BID assessment is not a tax.” But for those who decide to skip paying this tax? After a few years, they will experience the blunt power of government tax collection.

    Taxation without transparency

    The agenda packet states this about the relationship between the city and the district: “While the City levies the service fee, it can contract with a third-party organization such as the DDD to operate the BID.”

    Wichita has similar organizations. One is the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation, now known as Downtown Wichita. This organization is funded nearly entirely by tax revenue from an improvement district. Yet, it refuses to make its spending records public, and the city supports that decision. 6

    Another similar taxpayer-funded organization is the city’s convention and tourism bureau, which has gone by several names over the years. Regarding it, in 2012 I wrote:

    We’ve learned that city council members rely on — as Randy Brown told the council last year — facile legal reasoning to avoid oversight: “It may not be the obligation of the City of Wichita to enforce the Kansas Open Records Act legally, but certainly morally you guys have that obligation. To keep something cloudy when it should be transparent I think is foolishness on the part of any public body, and a slap in the face of the citizens of Kansas. By every definition that we’ve discovered, organizations such as Go Wichita are subject to the Kansas Open Records Act.” 7

    Of interest is a segment from the KAKE Television public affairs program “This Week in Kansas” where the failure of the Wichita City Council, especially council member Pete Meitzner (district 2, east Wichita), to recognize the value of open records and open government is discussed. Video is here.

    Since this time, the city has formed a business improvement district known as a TBID. It covers all hotels in the city and imposes an additional 2.75 percent tax to hotel bills, although the city and hotels call it a “City Tourism Fee.” 8 I’ve not asked for records of this spending, but I am sure the request would be rejected.

    Will the Douglas Design District follow the standard set by Wichita’s other improvement districts and evade accountability and transparency?

    Results from current improvement districts

    The Washington Monthly piece mentions that city halls can hold BIDs accountable. But lack of transparency works against oversight and accountability.

    Then, if anyone wonders what about the results of Wichita’s improvement districts, here are a few findings:

    • For the past decade business activity in downtown Wichita has been on a downhill trend. The data for 2017 (the most recent year for data) holds good news, with business activity rising. It isn’t the vibrant growth we’ve been told is happening in downtown Wichita, but at least things are not getting worse. 9
    • Truthfulness is in short supply. The Downtown Wichita organization has been caught in either a huge lie or gross incompetence regarding its claim of the number of people working in downtown Wichita. After brought to its attention, the number is no longer used. 10
    • Wichita economic development officials use a circuitous method of estimating the population of downtown Wichita, producing a number much higher than Census Bureau estimates. 11
    • Looking at hotel guest tax receipts, which are a surrogate for total hotel room revenue, we observe that of the largest markets in Kansas, Wichita has experienced nearly the least growth in hotel guest tax collections since 2010. 12

    Despite this record, Wichita City Hall seems satisfied with these results.

    —
    Notes

    1. City of Wichita. Agenda for August 21, 2018, Item IV-1. Available at http://www.wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/08-21-2018%20City%20Council%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf. ↩
    2. City of Wichita. Agenda for January 14, 2020, Item V-4. Available at https://wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/01-14-2020%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf. ↩
    3. Max Rivlin-Nadler. Business Improvement Districts Ruin Neighborhoods. The New Republic, February 19, 2016. Available at https://newrepublic.com/article/130188/business-improvement-districts-ruin-neighborhoods. ↩
    4. Saahil Desai. One Landlord, One Vote. Available at https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2018/one-landlord-one-vote/. ↩
    5. Sanscartier, Matthew D.; Gacek, James. Out, Damned Spot: Socio-economic Hygienic Practices of Business Improvement Districts. Canadian Journal of Urban Research. Winter 2016, Vol. 25 Issue 2, p73-85. ↩
    6. Weeks, Bob. Wichita’s open records policy is contrary to the interests of citizens. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-open-records-policy-contrary-interests-citizens/. ↩
    7. Weeks, Bob. Wichita, again, fails at open government. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/open-records/wichita-again-fails-at-open-government/. ↩
    8. Weeks, Bob. Wichita seeks to add more tax to hotel bills. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-seeks-add-tax-hotel-bills/. ↩
    9. Weeks, Bob. Downtown Wichita jobs rise Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/downtown-wichita-jobs-rise/. ↩
    10. Weeks, Bob. Downtown Wichita jobs, sort of. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/downtown-wichita-jobs/. ↩
    11. Weeks, Bob. Downtown Wichita population is up Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/downtown-wichita-population-is-up-2018/. ↩
    12. Weeks, Bob. Updated: Kansas hotel guest tax collections Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/economics/updated-kansas-hotel-guest-tax-collections/. ↩
  • Political civility in our age of thuggery

    Political civility in our age of thuggery

    Following, from Karl Peterjohn, an account of why the Wichita Pachyderm Club is a valuable civic institution. The candidate mentioned in the article is Renee Duxler, running for Sedgwick County Commission District 1 (map is here). On her Facebook page she wrote “Proving once again that Democrats and Republicans can share ideas and thoughtful discussion within the same spaces … this gal ‘infiltrated’ the Wichita Pachyderm Club for a great presentation by Kyle Bauer, of KFRM radio, on the history and future of agriculture here in Kansas. They were very gracious and welcoming, and I enjoyed the experience immensely. Let’s keep the conversations going Sedgwick County!” Of note: Her opponent, Wichita City Council Member Pete Meitzner (district 2, east Wichita), said he was “troubled” that the Pachyderm Club had a member who supported Duxler instead of him.

    Political civility in our age of thuggery
    By Karl Peterjohn

    I want to protect the identity of the Democrat candidate who made the decision to attend the October 12 Pachyderm Club meeting in downtown Wichita. I am concerned that retribution from the leftist loons and Alinskyite thugs that inhabit the extremist, but increasingly mainstream wing of the Democrat Party could be substantial. This is not a partisan statement. A couple of days ago I saw an online report where a Pennsylvania Democrat was forced to resign his party position because of his pro-American beliefs.

    While I was presiding as the substitute president, I had the task of introducing elected officials and during elections, candidates running for office. This is routine with anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen candidates in attendance as we were about four weeks away from an election.

    I was informed that a Democrat candidate was attending this GOP meeting and I was asked to include her in the candidate introductions. In our current age where GOP members of Congress have been shot and assaulted by socialist and leftists (Steve Scalise and Rand Paul), where GOP offices from Manhattan to Wyoming have been vandalized this month, where GOP candidates in Minnesota have been physically attacked while campaigning, it would have been easy to decline this request. I considered doing this.

    However, there should be civility in our public affairs, despite odious comments to the contrary from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, about civility being only for progressives, liberals, and leftists. Dare I say it, we increasingly live in a country and period of time where good political manners, are the exception and not the rule. Now the Pachyderm rules are clear, with all GOP candidates being endorsed for the general election ballot, but no position taken in contested primaries. The rule on public introductions is not clear, was left to the presiding officer, no matter how temporary he happens to be, at the podium.

    When I got down to the Democrat candidate’s name I went ahead and introduced her to the Pachyderm Club members and guests. I did point out her party affiliation, and contrasted the Pachyderm’s polite treatment of this Democrat candidate with the vile statement from the Obama administration attorney general Eric Holder that violence, in the form of his admonition, “… kick them,” in attacking Republicans is increasingly the political standard today.

    The Wichita Pachyderm Club has occasionally had democrats as speakers. I pointed this out. A prominent Wichita Democrat, Professor Mel Kahn, has spoken to Pachyderm and the informational speakers, whether they are talking about Plato, Alexander Hamilton, or at this meeting, agriculture in Kansas, do not have a partisan political subject. This speaker, KFRM radio’s Kyle Bauer, could have just as easily provided his excellent agriculture presentation to Democrats, Libertarians, or any other group of Kansans interested in this important part of our state’s economy (This is a free plug for Mr. Bauer who provided an exceptional agriculture presentation).

    I believe that the Pachyderm Club provided an example of civility in the public policy arena. This is Kansas nice. Sadly, this is increasingly the exception in today’s toxic political climate where conservatives and Republican elected officials are harassed in public, harangued at restaurants, in office hallways, town hall meetings disrupted, and general nastiness under Representative Maxine Waters admonitions promoting thuggery are increasingly commonplace. I must admit, that in the past the Pachyderm Club has taken steps to make sure that disruptions, and disruptive behavior, did not occur from non-members who opposed a speaker at one of our meetings. How sad.

    The Constitution of our country is the outline of how we govern ourselves. The states, and the localities and governmental bodies created by the states (like counties, cities, and school districts), are the public institutions we use to resolve public policy differences in our democratic republic. Our Constitution has been a model for the rest of the world since it was enacted in 1789. Other nations resolve their public policy differences by other ways, using other means. These often conflict with the liberty our Constitution and its amendments, tries to establish.

    It has been said, that politics is a form of war by other means. We had one civil war, with over 600,000 killed and hundreds of thousands permanently injured, and that is a part of our nation’s history when our differences could not be resolved politically. Violence and thuggery should not be part of our future, but it is a present problem, and a growing threat to our republic.

    I am glad that civility was alive and well at the Pachyderm Club on October 12. I hope that this becomes a model for other public meetings by other groups in the future. I am afraid that this political civility was an exception, but it does deserve public notice since the local news media was not in attendance.

  • Business improvement district proposed in Wichita

    Business improvement district proposed in Wichita

    The Douglas Design District proposes to transform from a voluntary business organization to a tax-funded branch of government (but doesn’t say so).

    Update: On August 21, the council approved the formation of the planning committee.

    This week the Wichita City Council will consider taking the first step in forming a business improvement district (BID) in east-central Wichita. Some explanation from the agenda packet for the meeting: 1

    First, there already exists a voluntary organization: “The Douglas Design District (DDD) is a voluntary organization of over 300 local businesses located near Douglas Avenue between Washington Avenue and Oliver Avenue. In 2017, the DDD established a five-year strategic plan to become a financially self-sustaining organization that is not reliant on elective membership.”

    The purpose of a business improvement district: “A BID provides for the administration and financing of additional and extended services to businesses within the district and is funded by the City levying a mandatory service fee on the businesses within the district.”

    Who will collect, and who will spend? “While the City levies the service fee, it can contract with a third-party organization such as the DDD to operate the BID. The approach is similar to that used by the City to contract with the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation in downtown.”

    The action on the agenda this week is to establish a planning committee to develop things like district boundaries, services to be provided, and a budget. Although city documents aren’t specific, it’s likely this “service fee” will be levied as a property tax.

    Are BIDs a good idea? Most information about them is provided by their boosters, that is, those who directly benefit from the service fee, which is really a tax. But there are some doubters. The New Republic, by no means a conservative publication, printed a piece arguing against BIDs, stating: “But too often BIDs have turned against the businesses they were meant to serve, making the cost of entry into a new area even higher for local merchants, or lacking the transparency needed to instill trust from the community.” 2

    A larger and more balanced look at BIDs comes from Washington Monthly this summer:

    The privatized structure of BIDs may raise liberals’ hackles, but it’s clear that BIDs can be a useful tool to remake neighborhoods into places where people actually want to spend their time. Many big-city mayors — who are overwhelmingly Democratic — have thrown their weight behind them. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser recently doled out grants totaling $300,000 to five neighborhoods thinking about forming their own BIDs. (One of the grantees, Dupont Circle, with the decaying park, will start collecting taxes from business owners in the fall.)

    Still, there are real downsides to BIDs for renters and small business owners, who will not benefit from rising property values and may ultimately be pushed out of the area. Luckily, this isn’t a hugely difficult problem to remedy. The best, and easiest, way to revamp how BIDs are run is through city halls; they’re the ones who legislate what BIDs can and can’t do, while holding them accountable to the public. But too often, they renege on that responsibility. 3

    From Canada, harsh criticism:

    In this paper, we propose and develop the concept of “socio-economic hygiene” to denote the ways in which neoliberal Western urban space is spatially regulated and re-oriented towards consumption in a way that reinforces social exclusion. … We conclude by tracking how sociological strategies of “hygiene” have moved from racial and biological features to features of place and socioeconomic status, and how BIDs, resembling genocidal states in certain ways, use these strategies to continually justify their own existence. 4

    Civil society, or government?

    What should trouble everyone is the replacement of civil society with political society. Edward H. Crane explains: “There are basically only two ways to organize society: Coercively, through government mandates, or voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations. … In a civil society, you make the choices about your life. In a political society, someone else makes those choices.”

    Right now DDD is a voluntary organization. Civil society, in other words. But now it is proposed to replace it with political society.

    Why trade voluntary cooperation for the force of government? The annual report of the DDD (included in the city council agenda packet) explains: “Approximately 1/3 of businesses in DDD’s project area are DDD members yet ALL businesses benefit from DDD’s efforts. A BID eliminates this ‘free rider’ problem and, if implemented, would allow DDD to have a singular focus on implementing the BID business plan rather than always chasing membership.” For emphasis, the report notes: “THE PAYMENT OF THE BID ASSESSMENT WILL REPLACE MEMBERSHIP DUES.”

    Another term for chasing membership is selling your product by showing how it creates value. If the formation of the BID is successful, the Douglas Design District will be relieved of this necessity. Will having a guaranteed source of revenue make DDD more or less responsive to its members?

    Also, the DDD annual report states: “A BID assessment is not a tax.” I wonder what will happen to anyone who decides to skip paying this tax. After a few years, they will experience the blunt power of government tax collection.

    Taxation without transparency

    The agenda packet states this about the relationship between the city and the district: “While the City levies the service fee, it can contract with a third-party organization such as the DDD to operate the BID.”

    Wichita has similar organizations. One is the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation, now known as Downtown Wichita. This organization is funded nearly entirely by tax revenue from an improvement district. Yet, it refuses to make its spending records public, and the city supports that decision. 5

    Another similar taxpayer-funded organization is the city’s convention and tourism bureau, which has gone by several names over the years. Regarding it, in 2012 I wrote:

    We’ve learned that city council members rely on — as Randy Brown told the council last year — facile legal reasoning to avoid oversight: “It may not be the obligation of the City of Wichita to enforce the Kansas Open Records Act legally, but certainly morally you guys have that obligation. To keep something cloudy when it should be transparent I think is foolishness on the part of any public body, and a slap in the face of the citizens of Kansas. By every definition that we’ve discovered, organizations such as Go Wichita are subject to the Kansas Open Records Act.” 6

    Of interest is a segment from the KAKE Television public affairs program “This Week in Kansas” where the failure of the Wichita City Council, especially council member Pete Meitzner (district 2, east Wichita), to recognize the value of open records and open government is discussed. Video is here.

    Since this time, the city has formed a business improvement district known as a TBID. It covers all hotels in the city and imposes an additional 2.75 percent tax to hotel bills, although the city and hotels call it a “City Tourism Fee.” 7 I’ve not asked for records of this spending, but I am sure the request would be rejected.

    Will the Douglas Design District follow the standard set by Wichita’s other improvement districts and evade accountability and transparency?

    Results from current improvement districts

    The Washington Monthly piece mentions that city halls can hold BIDs accountable. But lack of transparency works against oversight and accountability.

    Then, if anyone wonders what about the results of Wichita’s improvement districts, here are a few findings:

    • For the past decade business activity in downtown Wichita has been on a downhill trend. The data for 2016 (the most recent year for data) is a bit of good news, with the decline stopping and business activity remaining mostly unchanged. It isn’t the vibrant growth we’ve been told is happening in downtown Wichita, but at least things are not getting worse. 8
    • Truthfulness is in short supply. The Downtown Wichita organization has been caught in either a huge lie or gross incompetence regarding its claim of the number of people working in downtown Wichita. After brought to its attention, the number is no longer used. 9
    • Wichita economic development officials use a circuitous method of estimating the population of downtown Wichita, producing a number much higher than Census Bureau estimates. 10
    • Looking at hotel guest tax receipts, which are a surrogate for total hotel room revenue, we observe that of the largest markets in Kansas, Wichita has experienced the least growth in hotel guest tax collections since 2010. 11

    Despite this record, Wichita City Hall seems satisfied with these results.

    —
    Notes

    1. City of Wichita. Agenda for August 21, 2018, Item IV-1. Available at http://www.wichita.gov/Council/Agendas/08-21-2018%20City%20Council%20Agenda%20Packet.pdf. ↩
    2. Max Rivlin-Nadler. Business Improvement Districts Ruin Neighborhoods. The New Republic, February 19, 2016. Available at https://newrepublic.com/article/130188/business-improvement-districts-ruin-neighborhoods. ↩
    3. Saahil Desai. One Landlord, One Vote. Available at https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2018/one-landlord-one-vote/. ↩
    4. Sanscartier, Matthew D.; Gacek, James. Out, Damned Spot: Socio-economic Hygienic Practices of Business Improvement Districts. Canadian Journal of Urban Research. Winter 2016, Vol. 25 Issue 2, p73-85. ↩
    5. Weeks, Bob. Wichita’s open records policy is contrary to the interests of citizens. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-open-records-policy-contrary-interests-citizens/. ↩
    6. Weeks, Bob. Wichita, again, fails at open government. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/open-records/wichita-again-fails-at-open-government/. ↩
    7. Weeks, Bob. Wichita seeks to add more tax to hotel bills. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/wichita-seeks-add-tax-hotel-bills/. ↩
    8. Weeks, Bob. Downtown Wichita business trends. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/downtown-wichita-business-trends-2016/. ↩
    9. Weeks, Bob. Downtown Wichita jobs, sort of. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/downtown-wichita-jobs/. ↩
    10. Weeks, Bob. Living in downtown Wichita. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/downtown-wichita-business-trends-2016/. ↩
    11. Weeks, Bob. Kansas hotel tax collections. Available at https://wichitaliberty.org/kansas-government/kansas-hotel-tax-collections/. ↩
  • WichitaLiberty.TV: Matt Kibbe of Free the People

    WichitaLiberty.TV: Matt Kibbe of Free the People

    In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Matt Kibbe of Free the People joins Karl Peterjohn and Bob Weeks to discuss FreeThePeople.org and our relationship with government. Mr. Kibbe’s appearance was made possible by the Wichita Chapter of the Bastiat Society. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 171, broadcast November 4, 2017.

    Shownotes

  • In Sedgwick County, a moral crusade

    In Sedgwick County, a moral crusade

    In Sedgwick County the debate over the budget has the dimension of a moral crusade, except for one thing.

    As Sedgwick County debates next year’s budget, the arguments against a three percent cut in spending have been heated. Proponents of spending say the commissioners are not honoring commitments (see here and here), the commissioners are being short-sighted and foolish for proposing cuts, the county has a moral obligation to use taxes to care for the needy, and that county spending has a great economic benefit.

    But what isn’t often mentioned is the nature of taxation and government spending. A new video from Learn Liberty offers a perspective on the morality of government that seems to be totally missing in the debate. View the video below, or click here.

    In summary, the video poses these questions:

    1. Is it moral for you to donate your money and time to (the zoo, Exploration Place, arts, health care for the poor, vocational education, payments to companies so they remain in the county instead of moving, a livestock show, the river festival, the sports commission, etc.)?

    2. Is it moral for you to force other people to donate their time and money to (same list as in question one)?

    3. Is it moral for government to force people to donate their time and money to (same list as in question one)?

    If you answer “no” to question two, then how do you justify answering “yes” to question three? All sorts of rationalizations are available to support these two answers, such as:

    1. Society is like a club, and taxes are the dues.
    2. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.
    3. Government owns the nation (state, county, city, school district), and if you want to live or do business there, you must pay rent.
    4. Government gives (most) people back more in services and benefits than they pay in taxes.
    5. Government makes investments with our taxes that earn it even more tax revenue.

    Some of these have a grain of truth, such as taxes providing for the national defense and a justice system. These two things make it possible for us to be safe from foreign aggressors and to have our rights and property protected. It doesn’t take a whole lot — comparatively speaking — to provide these functions, but government goes way beyond.

    In fact, the truth behind number four leads to a most uncivil society, where people spend vast amounts of time and money lobbying for government to take even more time and money away from others and give it to them — or to the things they think your money should be spent on. We end up fighting over things like zoos and arts, instead of cooperating to attain these desirable amenities.

    And fight we do. The techniques are known in advance. The book Economics In One Lesson, first published in 1946 and available to read at the Foundation for Economic Education, explains fallacies (false or mistaken ideas) that are particularly common in the field of economics and public policy. At the very start of the book the author Henry Hazlitt explains:

    Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine — the special pleading of selfish interests. While every group has certain economic interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for then plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject becomes next to impossible.

    In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.

    An example of using the “best buyable minds” is the promotion of government spending on arts as having some magic power not present in other spending. These buyable minds have produced an impressive document titled Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of the Nonprofit Arts and Culture Industry in the State of Kansas. It explains that when a theater company (presumably operating with a government grant) buys a gallon of paint, it sets off a chain of economic activity that benefits many people. True enough. It’s called commerce. But anyone buying the paint sets off the same chain of activity. The same, that is, except that homeowners spending their own money on paint are doing so voluntarily, while the government-subsidized theater company has used the force of government to take money from others.

    That’s a big difference, and one lost on most residents of Sedgwick County. I’m hopeful that the people pleading for more taxation and spending are simply unaware of these considerations, as if so, their minds can change. The alternative is much more bleak.

  • Sedgwick County spending beneficiaries overwhelm others

    Sedgwick County spending beneficiaries overwhelm others

    That so many speakers at a public hearing were in favor of government spending is not surprising.

    In a letter to the editor of the Wichita Eagle the writer stated “But apparently few of them felt strongly enough to come to the commission hearing and express their support of budget cuts.” He was referring to the public hearing on Wednesday July 29, when some 50 people spoke, and just three supported cuts.

    This lopsided ratio is not surprising. It’s an example of the well-known phenomenon of concentrated benefits and dispersed (or diffuse) costs. Explained in this video, it observes that for most government spending programs, the benefits are showered on a few very visible recipients who benefit greatly. There were 47 of these speaking at last week’s public hearing.

    But the costs of these spending programs are spread across everyone, or at least a large group. For them, the cost is small. In fact, politicians use this argument in favor of their spending programs. Dave Unruh observed that the proposed county property tax cuts amount to savings of $1.37 per year for a $100,000 house. His arithmetic is correct, and so is his understanding of human nature. Most people look at the small cost of any single government spending program and realize it’s not worth much personal effort to save $1.37 (or whatever) per year.

    Since the costs of each spending program is small for any single person, not many get worked up and take action. That’s why only three of 50 speakers opposed the spending programs. Politicians and beneficiaries of spending programs rely on this imbalance of motives.

    Not often mentioned is that most of the organizations seeking county funding are charities. Anyone may make contributions directly to them. Some people have testified that they don’t need a cut in taxes, or that they would be willing to be taxed more so that these organizations could have more funding. Perhaps these people don’t realize that it is within their power to make contributions to these charities at any time.

    It seems we have forgotten that charity is a voluntary act, and that government taxation and spending is not charitable. This is evidence of further drift from a civil society where things like zoos and medical care for the poor are handled on a voluntary and cooperative basis. Instead, we fight.

  • WichitaLiberty.TV: Arts funding, property taxes, uninformed officials, tax increment financing, and social security

    WichitaLiberty.TV: Arts funding, property taxes, uninformed officials, tax increment financing, and social security

    In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Is Wichita risking a Soviet-style future? A look at Wichita property taxes, uninformed and misinformed elected officials, tax increment financing, and social security. View below, or click here to view on YouTube. Episode 86, broadcast June 7, 2015.

  • Soviet-style society seen as Wichita’s future

    Soviet-style society seen as Wichita’s future

    If local governments don’t fund arts, we risk a Soviet-style existence. This line of thought is precisely backwards.

    Facing the possible loss of funds from Sedgwick County, the Wichita Arts Council paints a bleak future for Wichita, as reported in the Wichita Eagle:

    The Wichita Arts Council receives approximately $14,000 from the county, which it uses to provide seed money for start-up art projects, president Arlen Hamilton said. It also receives about $6,000 from the city, he said.

    “Without us being there to provide that start, many of these things would never get off the ground, and we’d end up with more of a Soviet-style society than the bright, colorful and educational environment that we get to live in instead,” Hamilton said. (Sedgwick County to warn organizations of possible funding cuts)

    This line of reasoning is precisely backwards. When government taxes us and turns over the funds to a group of elitists to make decisions about which art is desirable and which is not, that is characteristic of totalitarian, socialist societies. In a civil society people don’t expect others to be forced to pay for things like this.

    Defenders of government spending on arts say it’s a small amount of money. It’s just seed money. This “seed money” effect is precisely why government should not be funding arts. David Boaz explains:

    Defenders of arts funding seem blithely unaware of this danger when they praise the role of the national endowments as an imprimatur or seal of approval on artists and arts groups. Jane Alexander says, “The Federal role is small but very vital. We are a stimulus for leveraging state, local and private money. We are a linchpin for the puzzle of arts funding, a remarkably efficient way of stimulating private money.” Drama critic Robert Brustein asks, “How could the [National Endowment for the Arts] be ‘privatized’ and still retain its purpose as a funding agency functioning as a stamp of approval for deserving art?” … I suggest that that is just the kind of power no government in a free society should have.

    The leveraging effect of seed money means that elitists like the members of the Wichita Arts Council have great power in deciding who will succeed in the arts in Wichita. We give up a lot when we turn over this power to government bureaucrats and arts commission cronies. Contrary to the argument of the Arts Council president, arts thrive in markets where people are free to choose, and stagnate under taxation and bureaucracy.

    If you don't like this statue, just don't go there, says Wichita City Council member Lavonta Williams. But, you must pay for it.
    The attitude of Wichita elected officials regarding art: If you don’t like this statue, just don’t go there, says Wichita City Council member Lavonta Williams. But, you still must pay for it.