Voice For Liberty

Tag: Rhonda Holman

  • Just Say It: We Need to Raise Taxes in Kansas

    Rhonda Holman’s Wichita Eagle editorial today (State budget pain must be shared) makes the case for raising Kansas taxes without directly saying so. It’s actually quite artful the way she dodges actually saying what she wants Kansas legislators to do.

    Using language like “Nobody ever wants to raise taxes …” and “Lawmakers also must not forget that they played a role in bringing Kansas to this point … without adding new revenue and by cutting taxes” she makes the case for tax hikes without actually saying the word. She did say this: “But cuts won’t be enough.” That’s pretty close, I guess.

    My question is this: Rhonda, why won’t you just say in plain language that you believe we need to raise taxes in Kansas? Just say it, if you believe it.

  • On the Wichita Eagle editorial board, partisanship reigns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Untruths about carbon and its regulation at the Wichita Eagle

    The Wichita Eagle’s recent editorial by Rhonda Holman takes a few Kansas legislators to task for statements regarding regulatory uncertainly in Kansas (No ‘regulatory uncertainty’ in Kansas, October 28, 2008 Wichita Eagle). She claims their statements “don’t reflect reality” and that their untruths are harming Kansas’ ability to bring in business.

    I want to remind Ms. Holman of reporting in the Topeka Capital-Journal from earlier this year which investigated some of the issues surrounding the denial of the permit for the expansion of Holcomb Station. As reported in my post Rod Bremby’s Action Drove Away the Refinery, the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment absolutely created a very confusing situation. He denied a plant solely for its level of carbon emissions, and then said that a proposed plant that emits even more carbon would not be a problem.

    Who would trust a public official who speaks like that?

    Besides this, Ms. Holman says the Holcomb plant is bad for Kansas, as it exports power “while leaving Kansas with 100 percent of the carbon dioxide.” I know of no authority — not even Al Gore — that believes that carbon dioxide pollution is a problem in the local vicinity of a power plant. To the extent that carbon emissions are a problem — and that’s a mighty big “if” — it’s a problem on a global scale. Why else would climate change alarmists be concerned about carbon emissions from power plants in China?

  • Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman on Wichita school bond issue

    The Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman, in her recent editorial Business should get off fence on bond, urges voters to get educated about the proposed Wichita School bond issue. It would be helpful if she’d do the same.

    Just two small examples: First, Ms. Holman says that the reforms that I have promoted “have nothing to do with the district’s pressing facilities needs.” Here’s why she’s wrong.

    USD 259 says they want to be held accountable. They say so. But it is only choice– giving parents real choices that they’re capable of exercising — that can hold them accountable. Anything less is not effective. As illustrated by the failure of USD 259 to positively respond to citizen record requests, USD 259 is not willing to release information that will help citizens — and newspaper editorial writers too, if they’re truly interested — hold the district accountable. Even casual information requests take time to fill. For example, in support of the current bond issue, USD 259 claims that research supports arts and athletics as ingredients in the success of students. But if you ask them to provide a reference to this research so that you can read it for yourself, it might take nine days for USD 259 to supply it. That’s how long it took for them to respond to me. You might think that if the district makes a claim, they would have evidence supporting it ready.

    Then, contrary to Ms. Holman’s claims, school choice reforms can help with the district’s pressing needs. One such need is overcrowding. If charter schools opened, the students that chose to attend them would reduce overcrowding in the Wichita schools. Overcrowding is not a district-wide problem, so it’s possible that this might not be a total solution. But Rhonda Holman dismisses it entirely.

    Wichitans need to ask whether Rhonda Holman is simply misinformed, or whether she knows these things but ignores them to advance her political agenda.

  • Rhonda Holman’s Kansas Energy Policy: Not Good for Kansas

    Wichita Eagle editorialist Rhonda Holman writes “[Kansas Governor Kathleen] Sebelius gets it. Too bad the Kansas Chamber does not.”

    This is the end of her lead editorial from today titled Kansas Chamber protecting past. In it, she claims that the Kansas Chamber of Commerce is out of touch with the reality of global warming, and by extension, that our governor isn’t.

    Ms. Holman cites a study showing that green investment in Kansas could add many jobs to our economy. That’s no doubt true. But these jobs have all the characteristics of public works jobs, meaning that for each job created, one is lost somewhere else. That’s because these jobs don’t add to the wealth of Kansas, as we already are producing electricity. These new jobs simply shift Kansas to using a different form of power generation, one that Ms. Holman prefers.

    Now if this shift was necessary to save our planet, that might be one thing. But the consensus behind man-made global warming is not as strong as Ms. Holman claims. And even if true, it might be best to learn to deal with the changing climate rather than try to stop the change.

    Even if global warming is due to man’s activity, there’s very little we in Kansas can do to stop it. As illustrated in the article KEEP’s Goal is Predetermined and Ineffectual, Kansas is just a tiny speck on the Earth. Other countries overwhelm anything we can do in Kansas:

    So even if Kansas stopped producing all carbon emissions, the effect would be overcome in about 16 months of just the growth in China’s emissions. This doesn’t take into account the huge emissions China already produces, or the rapid growth in other countries.

    That’s right. Even if we stopped all carbon emissions in Kansas, the growth of emissions in China would very quickly negate our extreme sacrifice.

    That’s the reality of the arithmetic of carbon emissions. But Ms. Holman thinks this is okay.

    One of the comments left in response to Ms. Holman’s editorial argued in favor of solar and wind power and stated “Zero energy cost forever and zero drawdown of the Ogallala [sic] aquifer — what’s not to like?” This comment writer might want to take notice of impending expiration of the wind production tax credit, which gives money to subsidize the production of these two types of power. Without this subsidy, supporters of wind and solar power concede that investment in these forms of energy will likely cease. Furthermore, our local electric utility is asking for a rate increase, in part due to the expensive cost of wind power. See Tax incentive for wind energy producers set to expire and Kansas Electric Rates Increase Because of Wind Power Generation.

  • Wichita School Bond Presentation by Helen Cochran

    On September 15, 2008, Helen Cochran of Citizens for Better Education gave a talk before a Wichita civic group. Her talk was fabulous. Here are some highlights:

    Helen (like myself) has tried to get test scores from USD 259 (Wichita public school district), but it’s a difficult process. There’s always a delay or reason why figures aren’t available. But, as Helen noted in her talk, school board president Lynn Rogers and Wichita Eagle columnist Mark McCormick seem to have access to the data. Openness and transparency, as I noted in posts like Wichita Public Schools: Open Records Requests Are a Burden isn’t a competency at USD 259.

    Helen mentioned what USD 259 doesn’t: new facilities will incur increased maintenance costs. It’s really worse than that, as new facilities need to be heated, cooled, and lighted. New classrooms, built to support class size reduction, need new teachers and perhaps more staff and bureaucracy.

    Here’s something important in Helen’s talk:

    The defeat of this school bond could be a beneficial springboard to realizing that business as usual is not succeeding in preparing our kids for the future and we must look to the numerous failures and successes in other communities if we are truly committed to giving our children the necessary tools to compete in a global economy.

    Vouchers, school choice, charter schools, home schools are not dirty words. The Wichita Eagle editorial board recently dismissed a group of bond opponents as “you people just want vouchers” as if that was all the more reason not to take opponents seriously in their concerns. These alternatives strike fear into the hearts of educational bureaucrats and teacher unions. Well you know what? It is not about them. It is about the children.

    Why is the existing education establishment and the Wichita Eagle editorial board afraid of school choice in Kansas? Their standard response is that school choice programs drain money from public schools. But this fear is unfounded. Recently the The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released the study School Choice by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006. Their finding? “Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.”

    It’s possible — perhaps likely — that members of the public education establishment like Wichita school board president Lynn Rogers and the other board members don’t know this. Perhaps Wichita Eagle columnists like Mark McCormick and Rhonda Holman dismiss school choice without knowing facts like this. If so, here’s a chance to become informed.

    Near the closing of her talk, Helen said this:

    This proposed bond, like many bonds across this country, is a referendum on an administrative bureaucracy that equates progress to shiny and new. And however well intended, we have a school board that follows, rather than leads. The mantra would appear to be go along to get along.

  • Government Art in Wichita

    Do we really want government art in Wichita?

    David Boaz, in his recent book The Politics of Freedom: Taking on The Left, The Right and Threats to Our Liberties writes this in a chapter titled “The Separation of Art and State”:

    It is precisely because art has power, because it deals with basic human truths, that it must be kept separate from government. Government, as I noted earlier, involves the organization of coercion. In a free society coercion should be reserved only for such essential functions of government as protecting rights and punishing criminals. People should not be forced to contribute money to artistic endeavors that they may not approve, nor should artists be forced to trim their sails to meet government standards.

    Government funding of anything involves government control. That insight, of course, is part of our folk wisdom: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” “Who takes the king’s shilling sings the king’s song.”

    When I read Rhonda Holman’s editorial City can be proud of its arts work in the July 15, 2008 Wichita Eagle, which starts with the stirring reminder that “The arts fire the mind and feed the heart” I thought that perhaps she was going to call for less government involvement in the arts. Anything so important to man’s nature surely, I thought she would agree, should not be placed in the hands of government.

    But my hopes were not realized, because soon she described the City of Wichita’s commitment to permanent spending on arts as “a bold and even brave investment in quality of life.” It appears that even the yearnings of our hearts and minds are subject to government management and investment.

    “Government art.” Is this not a sterling example of an oxymoron? Must government weasel its way into every aspect of our lives?

    And what about the “investment” in art, which Ms. Holman claims helps “drive the economy” through its economic impact and job creation? She, and Wichita City Council member Sharon Fearey rely on a study from 2007, which I discuss in Economic Fallacy Supports Arts in Wichita. This study tells of the fabulous returns on investment by governments when they invest in the arts. Like most studies of its type, however, it focuses only on the benefits without considering secondary consequences or how these benefits are paid for. Henry Hazlitt, in his masterful book Economics in One Lesson explains:

    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 them 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.

    It is, as Hazlitt terms it, “the special pleading of selfish interests” that drive much of the desire for government spending on the arts. Either that or elitism. Do newspaper editorialists and city council members believe that the people of Wichita can choose for themselves the art they want to enjoy, and then acquire it themselves? Evidently not, as the City of Wichita government has its Division of Arts & Cultural Services.

    (The material by David Boaz is from a speech which may be read here: The Separation of Art and State.)

  • Wichita School System Extends Its Monopoly

    On Saturday February 12, 2005 I attended a meeting of the South Central Kansas Legislative Delegation. Lynn Rogers, then the USD 259 (the Wichita public school district) school board president, and Connie Dietz, then vice-president of the same body, attended. There had been a proposal to spend an additional $415 million over the next three years on schools. Asked if this would be enough to meet their needs, the Wichita school board members replied, “No.”

    At least Mr. Rogers was not lying. More spending than that was approved, and true to his word, the Wichita Board of Education found it necessary this week to raise taxes so the public schools could have even more money.

    I can’t speak for Mr. Rogers, but I imagine that this tax increase is viewed as only a temporary stop-gap measure until some more substantial funding can be obtained.

    By the way, do you know that the Wichita Public School System has a marketing department? I wonder why an organization that requires customers to consume its product through compulsory attendance laws, that has the ability to raise funds through the coercive force of the state, and that has a government-mandated monopoly on the use of public education funds needs such a department. Then someone told me that’s where the school system’s lobbyists are. (I haven’t been able to verify that.) Now it made sense to me. The audience the school system is marketing to: the legislature and the governor.

    And what do we get for all this? According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only one-third of Kansas eighth-graders (Wichita figures are not separately available) are considered “proficient” in mathematics, reading, and writing. (The State of Kansas, as do most states, reports much higher proficiency rates on its own tests, but these tests are subject to local pressure to show good results.)

    Not much, it seems.

    School choice initiatives are springing up all over the country except in Kansas, where the education bureaucracy remains entrenched, aided by one business that should have a vested interested in well-educated potential customers. Earlier this year Wichita Eagle editorialist Rhonda Holman poked fun at some school board candidates because they were interested in charter schools and vouchers. If things proceed as they have, in another generation few Kansas high schools graduates will be able to read Ms. Holman’s editorials.

    Does that sound far-fetched? Consider a recent study by the American Institutes for Research, which found that “over half the graduates of four-year colleges and three-quarters of the graduates of junior and community colleges could not be categorized as possessing these ‘proficient’ skills.” At what skills are they not proficient? Understanding newspaper editorials was one such skill.

    Local school districts claim they want to be held accountable, but they strenuously resist the one way that provides true accountability. That way is the market, where people vote with their dollars and the future welfare of their children.

    True accountability can be achieved in only one way: let the government of the State of Kansas relinquish its monopoly on the financing and production of schooling — the very type of monopoly power that, if wielded by private enterprise, would be condemned as unjust and immoral.

  • Economic fallacy supports arts in Wichita

    Recently two editorials appeared in The Wichita Eagle promoting government spending on the arts because it does wonderful things for the local economy. The writers are Rhonda Holman and Joan Cole, who is chairwoman of the Arts Council.

    I read the study that these local writers relied on. The single greatest defect in this study is that it selectively ignores the secondary effects of government spending on the arts.

    As an example, the writers in the Eagle promote the study’s conclusion that the return on dollars spent on the arts is “a spectacular 7-to-1 that would even thrill Wall Street veterans.” It hardly merits mention that there aren’t legitimate investments that generate this type of return in any short timeframe.

    So were do these fabulous returns come from? Here’s a passage from the study that the Eagle writers relied on:

    A theater company purchases a gallon of paint from the local hardware store for $20, generating the direct economic impact of the expenditure. The hardware store then uses a portion of the aforementioned $20 to pay the sales clerk’s salary; the sales clerk respends some of the money for groceries; the grocery store uses some of the money to pay its cashier; the cashier then spends some for the utility bill; and so on. The subsequent rounds of spending are the indirect economic impacts.

    Thus, the initial expenditure by the theater company was followed by four additional rounds of spending (by the hardware store, sales clerk, grocery store, and the cashier). The effect of the theater company’s initial expenditure is the direct economic impact. The subsequent rounds of spending are all of the indirect impacts. The total impact is the sum of the direct and indirect impacts.

    Relying on this reasoning illustrates the problem with the Eagle editorials: they ignore the secondary effects of economic action, except when it suits their case. The fabulous returns erroneously attributed to spending on the arts derive from this chain of spending starting at the hardware store. But what the authors of this study and the Eagle editorial writers must fail to see is that anyone who buys a gallon of paint for any reason sets off the same chain of economic activity. There is no difference — except that a homeowner buying the paint is doing so voluntarily, while an arts organization using taxpayer-supplied money to buy the paint is using someone else’s money.

    The study also pumps up the return on government investment in the arts by noting all the other spending that arts patrons do on things like dinner before and desert after arts events. But if people kept their own money instead of being taxed to support the arts, they would spend this money on other things, and those things might include restaurant meals, too.

    The fact that these editorials have been printed might lead me to suspect that government-supported arts organizations and Eagle editorial writers might feel a little guilty about using taxpayer funds. They should. To take money from one group of people by government coercion and give it to other people, especially when that purpose is to stage arts events, is wrong. It’s even more so when the justification for doing this is so transparently incorrect.

    Arts organizations need to survive on their own merits. They need to produce a product or service that satisfies their customers and patrons just as any other business must.

    It may turn out that what people really want for arts and culture, as expressed by their own selections made freely, might be different from what government bureaucrats and commissions decide we should have. That freedom to choose, it seems to me, is something that our Wichita City Council, Arts Council, and Wichita Eagle editorial writers believe the public isn’t informed or responsible enough to enjoy.