Voice For Liberty

Tag: Regulation

  • Property rights should control Kansas smoking decisions

    A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

    Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Some ask why is there no right to clean air when there is the right to smoke. The answer is that both breathing clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

    It’s not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else’s property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If people are smoking, and patrons decide to stay, we can only conclude that they made the choice to stay. The owners of bars and restaurants do not have the power to force people to stay and breathe smoke.

    Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don’t want to be around smoke.

    Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their “right” to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else’s private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they — instead of the property owner — dictate.

    Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects freedom and liberty. Under property rights, bar and restaurant owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

    A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decision are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as “I’m a non-smoker and I think that …” or “I’m a smoker and …” These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

    Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters, but as we have seen, they have little respect for private property.

    By respecting property rights, we can have both smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers’ interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate or majority rule, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.

  • Testimony opposing Kansas smoking ban

    Submitted by John Todd.

    February 13, 2008

    Senate Judiciary Committee
    Kansas Legislature
    State Capitol
    Topeka, Kansas 66612

    Subject: My testimony presented in OPPOSITION to Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking.

    Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you in Opposition to passage of Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking, aka the Kansas smoking prohibition act.

    My name is John Todd. I am a self-employed real estate broker and land developer from Wichita. I currently serve on the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Board of Directors of Wichita Independent Business Association. I am the Wichita Area Volunteer Coordinator for Americans For Prosperity—Kansas. I have been working with the Wichita Business and Consumer Rights Coalition in an effort to stop a smoking ban ordinance currently being debated by the Wichita City Council. I appear before you today as a private citizen, speaking only for myself and not for any other group.

    I do not smoke, but does that give me, or even the majority of non-smokers in our state the right to use state law to restrict the rights and freedoms of those people who choose to smoke? A Democracy is like two wolves and a sheep deciding where to go for lunch. The lone sheep would have to agree with De Toquiville who described that situation as the “tyranny of the majority.” The pledge of allegiance describes our country as a “republic.” Our founders established a republican form of government in order to protect the individual’s rights from the tyranny of the majority.

    The sale and use of tobacco products is legal in our state. The sale of tobacco products produces tax revenue for our state, and government officials think that is positive. And, our Federal Government still subsidizes the growing of tobacco in tobacco growing states.

    The passage of Senate Bill # 493 is not needed because the smoking problem has been solving itself, for several years on the local level, without government intervention by the natural and voluntary action of our free market economic system. Over the last two to three decades, restaurants, bars, and other businesses have been “voluntarily” regulating smoking and non-smoking in their businesses all over our state without the need for government mandated regulations, and without the need for government enforcement. This move to non-smoking establishments has been consumer driven, and businesses have voluntarily responded to this demand. Some businesses owners still choose to offer smoking for their customers since their customers demand the freedom to smoke. Freedom demands choice by business owner and customer. And, Private Property Rights are best preserved when property owners are free to use their property as they see fit. State government needs to stay out of the smoking debate.

    Several cities in our state have adopted smoking ban ordinances while others have not. There are studies that show smoking bans cause economic harm to some businesses, and I have heard testimony from business owners in Wichita who have or will be impacted negatively by the passage of a proposed smoking ordinance by the City of Wichita. Like most regulations, the ordinance is complicated to the point of making it unenforceable. And, who is going to enforce the ordinance? Will additional city staff and the resultant bureaucracy be required for enforcement? What is enforcement going to cost? Will enforcement be selective or arbitrary? What economic impact will the ordinance have on business? Is the ordinance even necessary?

    The proponents of the ordinance are voicing concerns about public health and public health costs associated with smoking. Will this same group be pushing for city ordinances dealing with obesity with mandated diet and exercise? What will the penalties for failure to comply? Who will decide the standards?

    The proponents of the proposed city smoking ban ordinance appear to be the same group who want to direct the lives of other people since they know what is best for them. They have no problem supporting law that limits individual freedom of choice, and private property rights.

    Milton Friedman says, “A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that…it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

    The “voluntary” and “market-driven” solution to the so-called smoking problem has been happening automatically all over Kansas without the need for additional state law that criminalizes and punishes people who are partaking in their freedom to enjoy a legal product and activity. Senate Bill #493 looks like another regulation on the backs of business and property owners with the potential for creating an enforcement process that will be impossible to police, but at the same time create another level of expensive bureaucracy for a non-existent problem. I ask you to oppose the passage of Senate Bill #493.

    Related articles:

    It’s Not the Same as Pee In the Swimming Pool

    Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions

  • Let property rights rule Wichita smoking decisions

    A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking, as it is with all issues. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

    Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Charlie Claycomb, co-chair of the Tobacco Free Wichita coalition, asks in The Wichita Eagle why clean air is not a right when smoking is a right. The answer is that both clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

    It’s not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else’s property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If you do not want to be around cigarette smoke, all you have to do is leave. That’s what I do. It is that simple. No government regulation is needed: just leave. If you wish, tell the manager or owner why you are leaving. That may persuade the owner of the property to make a decision in your favor.

    Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don’t want to be around smoke.

    Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their “right” to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else’s private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they — not the property owner — dictate.

    Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects individual freedom and liberty. Under property rights, owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

    A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decisions are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as “I’m a non-smoker and I think that …” or “I’m a smoker and …” These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

    Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Wichita City Council member Jim Skelton, evidently once a smoker and opposed to smoking bans, is now receptive to bans since he quit smoking. Mr. Skelton, I ask you for this courtesy: would you please publish a list of the things you now take pleasure in, so that if you decide to quit them in the future, I shall have time to prepare myself for their banning?

    Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters like Wichita Vice Mayor Sharon Fearey. But we should not be surprised, as her record indicates she has little respect for private property.

    By respecting property rights, we can have smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers’ interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.

  • No end to increasing regulation

    Contrary to the popular perception, Bush has been one of the most pro-regulation presidents — far more so than Democrat Bill Clinton, who, in many ways, was a better friend to the free market than Bush has been. …By 2002, just one year into the Bush Administration, there were clear signs of backsliding. A government report endorsed the view that human activity was a principal cause of global warming and the administration signaled that it was going to become more aggressive about issuing new regulations. Said OMB’s Graham, “There’s no allergy to regulation” at the White House….Bush threw all of his free market principles to the wind and endorsed the biggest expansion of government regulation in decades by signing the Sarbanes-Oxley bill. …According to a report by the Small Business Administration, by 2004, the burden of government regulation on the economy reached $1.1 trillion — $10,172 per American household. A recent report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute found the regulatory onslaught continuing through 2006, with many new regulations still in the pipeline.

    — Bruce Bartlett, The Washington Times, February 7, 2007

  • No more smoking laws, please

    There is no doubt in my mind that smoking cigarettes and breathing secondhand smoke are harmful to health. If a young person asked my advice as to whether to smoke cigarettes, I would strongly urge them to avoid smoking.

    But it doesn’t follow that we should have laws against smoking, or laws that govern how businesses such as bars and restaurants must accommodate smokers and non-smokers.

    Smoking is (and should continue to be) a legal activity. It seems unlikely to me that there are adults who are not familiar with the data about the risks of smoking, and they are entitled to make up their own minds as to whether to smoke.

    In a similar fashion, business owners should be able to allow smoking or not, as they judge best serves the interests of their customers. Already many restaurants have judged that their customers prefer no smoking at all. That decision may drive off smoking customers, but that’s the business owner’s decision to make.

    Some businesses allow smoking, presumably because the owners decide it is in their best interests to allow smoking. If their customers tell them otherwise or if customers stay away, the business owner has a powerful incentive to change the smoking policy, either to ban it entirely, or to create a more effective barrier between smokers and non-smokers.

    People, through their free selection of where they choose to spend their dollars, will let bar and restaurant owners know their preferences. After some time we will have the optimal mix of smoking and non-smoking establishments based on what people actually do, not what politicians think they should do. Isn’t that better than using the heavy hand of government to force change?

    I believe that markets, if left to their own mechanism, would serve to reduce smoking. Already smokers pay more for life insurance. If it is true that smokers have more costly health problems than non-smokers, why not let health insurance be priced separately for smokers and non-smokers?

    Or, when renting an apartment, a landlord could charge smokers more to compensate for the higher risk of fire and the extra cleanup costs when the renters leave.

  • What to do about gasoline prices

    Almost anything the government does in response to the recent high gasoline prices is bound to fail. The easy political solution is to place price controls on gasoline, as Hawaii has done. Basic economics tells us that when a price is held artificially low through price controls, demand will be higher than what it would otherwise be, and supply will be less than it would otherwise be. What does that spell? A shortage, as was the case the last time there were price controls on gasoline. The misery of dealing with lines at gas stations was much worse than slightly higher gasoline prices.

    As Thomas Sowell wrote in a recent column: “The last time we had price controls on gasoline, we had long lines of cars at filling stations, these lines sometimes stretching around the block, with motorists sitting in those lines for hours.

    That nonsense ended almost overnight when President Ronald Reagan, ignoring the cries of liberal politicians and the liberal media, got rid of price controls with a stroke of the pen.

    What happened is what usually happens when government restrictions are ended: There was more production of oil. In fact the 1980s became known as the era of an ‘oil glut’ and gasoline prices declined.”

    In an article titled “What’s the Answer for High Gasoline Prices? Absolutely Nothing” by Jerry Taylor & Peter VanDoren, published last October in National Review, we read:

    “… consumers have a right to make their own decisions about trade-offs between higher gasoline prices and conservation without the government whacking them over the head with higher taxes, constrained choices in the vehicle market, or extracting their earnings for the benefit of corporations engaged in making cars or fuels that consumers presently don’t want to buy. Simply put, individuals know better how to order their personal affairs than do politicians or bureaucrats no matter how well meaning they might be.

    At the end of the day, the best remedy for high gasoline prices is…high gasoline prices, which provide all the incentives necessary for motorists to conserve, for oil companies to put more product into the marketplace, and for investors to look into alternatives fuel technologies. Government has never demonstrated an ability to do better.”

    There are also unintended consequences of any action. When government requires higher fuel economy quickly (as many are calling for), automakers will find that the easiest way to comply is to decrease the weight of cars, since weight is the most important determinant of fuel economy. As Dr. Sowell wrote: “Many of the same people who cry ‘No blood for oil!’ also want higher gas mileage standards for cars. But higher mileage standards have meant lighter and more flimsy cars, leading to more injuries and deaths in accidents — in other words, trading blood for oil.”

    News stories tell us of SUV drivers considering trading for vehicles with more efficient usage of gasoline. Anyone who is considering such a move needs to do a little arithmetic first. Figure out the cost per mile, considering gasoline only, for the two vehicles. Then consider the costs of ownership of a new vehicle. Sales tax alone on a new $25,000 car (that’s about the average price now) in Wichita is $1,825. If you trade a 15 mpg vehicle for a 25 mpg vehicle, with gas at $2.60 per gallon, you’re saving about $.173 per mile in gasoline costs. That seems like a lot, but you’ll need to drive 10,549 miles just to “save” what you paid in sales tax. For many people, it might take a year to drive that many miles.

    Consider the other costs. Since cars depreciate at about 2% per month, a $25,000 vehicle depreciates about $500 its first month. The vehicle you already own that’s worth, say, $10,000 depreciates just $200 the same month. That difference of $300 requires 1,734 miles of driving to pay for (but will decrease each month as the new car rapidly loses its value). If you borrow money to buy the new car, you’re paying interest that needs to be allowed for. Add it all up, and you may not be saving as much as you thought you might. Then, if the price of gasoline drops, you may not save anything at all.

  • Let free markets, not laws, regulate smoking

    Today, in the town of Hutchinson, Kansas, an indoor smoking ban takes effect. I hope Wichita does not pass the same law. I believe the evidence that shows smoking is tremendously harmful to the health of the smoker, and also dangerous to those around the smoker. Personally, I don’t care to be around smokers and I take measures to avoid places where I will be exposed to cigarette smoke. So shouldn’t I favor a smoking ban in Wichita?

    We should let free markets instead of the government decide whether there will be smoking in places like restaurants and bars. In this way, people will be able to smoke or avoid smoke as they see fit. If restaurant owners sense non-smokers don’t like eating in smoky restaurants, they can either eliminate smoking (at the risk of losing smoking customers), or they can build effective separation between smoking and non-smoking sections of the restaurant. Or, if they choose to cater to smokers, they can create all-smoking section establishments. The choice is theirs.

    People, through their free selection of where they choose to spend their dollars, will let bar and restaurant owners know their preferences. After some time we will have the optimal mix of smoking and non-smoking establishments based on what people actually do, not what politicians think they should do. Isn’t that a better way?

  • Vioxx and personal liberty

    A recent column by Thomas Sowell titled Free lunch ‘safety’: Part II (a link to part one is here) started with this paragraph:

    “The government will allow you to risk your life for the sake of recreation by sky-diving, mountain climbing or any number of other dangerous activities. But it will not allow you to risk your life for the sake of avoiding arthritis pain by taking Vioxx.”

    I was quite astonished to see the issue of Vioxx framed this way, but it is perfectly valid to do so.

    It appears that taking large doses of Vioxx increased the risk of a cardiovascular event by a factor of two. In other words, people taking large doses are twice as likely to be afflicted as those who were on placebo.

    That may seem like a large increase in risk. Consider, however, the risk of some other common activities. The death rate for motorcyclists in 2001 was 33.4 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. Passenger car riders have a death rate of 1.3 per 100 million miles traveled, a rate just 4% of that for motorcyclists. Yet riding a motorcycle is perfectly legal. The success of Harley-Davidson in manufacturing and selling them is saluted.

    Now compare the value of the pleasure of riding a motorcycle with relief from the pain of arthritis. And it’s not just a little ache in the knee once in a while. Many arthritis sufferers are in constant misery, and Vioxx helped some. An informed decision by the patient and doctor to accept an increase in the risk of a cardiovascular event in exchange for relief from miserable pain should be allowed. (That is, unless patients start to feel so well that they take up motorcycling.) But the hysterical media coverage of events like this, along with swarms of attorneys advertising for plaintiffs, eliminates this choice for patients and their doctors.

    Dr. Sowell’s article makes the point that drug companies like the makers of Vioxx are “denounced for ‘corporate greed’ by making money at the risk of other people’s lives.” But what about the motorcycle manufacturers and companies that promote dangerous recreational activity? Are they similarly denounced?

  • On Seatbelts and Helmets

    I believe there is little doubt that it is foolhardy to be in an automobile without wearing seatbelts, or to ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet. Someone inevitably claims that it is better to be thrown clear of the wreckage than to be trapped inside. But ask any race car driver — they who witness crashes all the time and may have even been in several — if they would dare take to the track without making use of their extensive belting systems.

    I believe it would be nice if we had the right to drive automobiles without wearing seatbelts, and to ride motorcycles without wearing helmets. These acts, while dangerous to the actor, don’t pose any real threat to others. If the person who crashes into my car isn’t wearing their seatbelt, it doesn’t change my likelihood of injury to my body. It does, however, greatly increase the danger to my wallet, and that’s where I draw the line.

    The economist Walter E. Williams, in a column titled Click it or ticket makes this conclusion:

    “Some might argue, but falsely so, that the problem with people exercising their liberty to drive without seatbelts, ride motorcycles without helmets or eat in unhealthy ways is that if they become injured or sick, society will be burdened with higher health-care costs. That’s not a problem of liberty but one of socialism.

    There’s no liberty-based argument for forcing one person to care for the needs of another. Under socialism, one is obliged to care for another. A parent-child relationship emerges between the citizen and the government. That was not the vision of our Founders.”

    He is correct that those who are injured often receive care that they don’t pay for themselves, either out-of-pocket or through their insurance carriers. Therefore, the rest of society pays. That reduces the liberty of others because they have to pay so that a few can enjoy their rights. Dr. Williams makes the call in favor of the rights of the seatbeltless, while I argue in favor of those who pay. Not wearing seatbelts or wearing a helmet is a small gratification. Having to pay the healthcare costs — and they are huge — to support those small liberties is oppressive. Until we can limit the economic damage of not wearing seatbelts or wearing helmets to those who cause it, I support laws requiring their use.