Voice For Liberty

Tag: Role of government

  • The Bailout Reader

    The Ludwig von Mises Institute has compiled The Bailout Reader, a collection of articles relevant to the current situation.

    Not all these articles are from the past few weeks, as Austrian economists have long understood the dangers of government interventionism, the fruits of which we see today.

    The events taking place in the financial market offer an illustration of the soundness of the Austrian theory of money, banking, and credit cycles, and Mises.org is your source not only for analysis of these events but also the economic theory that helps explain what is happening and what to do about it.

    Click here to access The Bailout Reader.

  • Government Workers Are America’s New Elite

    Should a special license-plate program for California government workers allow them to drive without regard for traffic laws? Is it possible for a firefighter to earn more than $200,000 in a year?

    The Foundation for Economic Education reports on these and other matters in Government Workers Are America’s New Elite.

  • Wichita Smoking Ban Starts. Sharon Fearey is Excited.

    Today, September 4, 2008, marks the first day of the ban on smoking in Wichita. It’s not quite a total ban, and that has some smoking ban supporters upset. In a letter to the Wichita Eagle, anti-smoking activist Cindy Claycomb writes “If you are a supporter of clean indoor air, please do not spend your money in businesses that allow smoking indoors, including smoking rooms. If we continue to spend our money at places that allow smoking indoors, that tells the business owners that we do not care — that we will tolerate secondhand smoke even though we all know the harmful effects.”

    Not everyone is upset, though. In the Wichita Eagle article Smoking ban takes effect; for smokers, end of an era, Wichita city council member Sharon Fearey is quoted as “I feel this is an exciting time for the city.” If, like council member Fearey, you appreciate increasing government and bureaucratic management of the lives of Wichitans, you might be excited, too. Those who value liberty and freedom, however, are saddened — even if they aren’t smokers.

    Fortunately Ms. Fearey is precluded from running again for her seat on the city council by term limits. The two architects of this smoking ban — Lavonta Williams and Jeff Longwell — can run for election again. The position held by Ms. Williams is up for grabs in the March 2009 primary. Hopefully the citizens of Wichita city council district one will elect someone respectful of property rights, not to mention personal rights.

    For more coverage of the smoking issue and why it’s important, these articles will be of interest: It’s Not the Same as Pee In the Swimming Pool, Haze Surrounds Wichita Smoking Ban, Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions, Let Property Rights Rule Wichita Smoking Decisions, Testimony Opposing Kansas Smoking Ban, and No More Smoking Laws, Please.

  • Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer saves us from covered wagons

    On August 12, 2008, at a meeting of the Wichita City Council, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer delivered remarks that I found … well, I’m still trying to find the words that fully describe my astonishment. You can read my transcription of his remarks in this post: Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, August 12, 2008.

    The context of these remarks is that John Todd and I had just testified against the city establishing a tax increment financing (TIF) district that benefits a local developer. Mayor Brewer believes it is the city’s firm duty to guide and subsidize economic development. His remarks on July 1, 2008 (Mayor Brewer Warren Theatre [sic] Statement) leave no doubt about this. So I wasn’t too surprised that the mayor ignored John’s and my advice and supported the formation of this TIF district.

    What surprised me was when the mayor said that without the city’s “role in guiding and identifying how the city was going to grow … we would still be in covered wagons and horses.”

    When I heard him say that, I thought he’s just using a rhetorical flourish to emphasize a point. But later on he said this: “… then tomorrow we’ll be saying we don’t want more technology, and then the following day we’ll be saying we don’t want public safety, and it won’t take us very long to get back to where we were at back when the city first settled.”

    So I think it’s fair to say that the mayor believes that without the city’s role in economic development, we would soon return to the stone age (okay, there I exaggerate a bit).

    Many people in Wichita, including the mayor and many on the city council and county commission, believe that the public-private partnership is the way to drive innovation and get things done. It’s really a shame that this attitude is taking hold in Wichita, a city which has such a proud tradition of entrepreneurship. The names that Wichitans are rightly proud of — Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, W.C. Coleman, Albert Alexander Hyde, Dan and Frank Carney, and Fred C. Koch — these people worked and built businesses without the benefit of public-private partnerships and government subsidy.

    Today this rugged heritage is disappearing in favor of the public-private partnership and programs like Visioneering Wichita. We don’t have long before the entrepreneurial spirit in Wichita is totally extinguished. What can we do to return power to the people instead of surrendering it to government?

  • Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, August 12, 2008

    Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer delivered these remarks after John Todd and I testified against the creation of a tax increment financing (TIF) district benefiting Wichita minister Kevass Harding. My remarks can be read here: Reverend Kevass Harding’s Wichita TIF District: A Bad Deal in Several Ways. John’s remarks are here: Testimony Opposing Tax Increment Financing for the Ken Mar Redevelopment Project.

    I took the time to transcribe the mayor’s remarks not only because I think Wichitans need to know more about his philosophy of the way government should work, but also because they reveal a few of the mayor’s beliefs that I found astonishing. The mayor appeared to be speaking informally, without prepared remarks.

    Commentary on the mayor’s remarks is here: Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer Saves Us From Covered Wagons. Video is at Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer on role of government and free enterprise.

    Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer: You know, I think that a lot of individuals have a lot of views and opinions about philosophy as to, whether or not, what role the city government should play inside of a community or city. But it’s always interesting to hear various different individuals’ philosophy or their view as to what that role is, and whether or not government or policy makers should have any type of input whatsoever.

    I would be afraid, because I’ve had an opportunity to hear some of the views, and under the models of what individuals’ logic and thinking is, if government had not played some kind of role in guiding and identifying how the city was going to grow, how any city was going to grow, I’d be afraid of what that would be. Because we would still be in covered wagons and horses. There would be no change.

    Because the stance is let’s not do anything. Just don’t do anything. Hands off. Just let it happen. So if society, if technology, and everything just goes off and leaves you behind, that’s okay. Just don’t do anything. I just thank God we have individuals that have enough gumption to step forward and say I’m willing to make a change, I’m willing to make a difference, I’m willing to improve the community. Because they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that improving the quality of life, improving the various different things, improving bringing in businesses, cleaning up street, cleaning up neighborhoods, doing those things, helping individuals feel good about themselves: they don’t want to acknowledge that those types of things are important, and those types of things, there’s no way you can assess or put a a dollar amount to it.

    Not everyone has the luxury to live around a lake, or be able to walk out in their backyard or have someone come over and manicure their yard for them, not everyone has that opportunity. Most have to do that themselves.

    But they want an environment, sometimes you have to have individuals to come in and to help you, and I think that this is one of those things that going to provide that.

    This community was a healthy thriving community when I was a kid in high school. I used to go in and eat pizza after football games, and all the high school students would go and celebrate.

    But, just like anything else, things become old, individuals move on, they’re forgotten in time, maybe the city didn’t make the investments that they should have back then, and they walk off and leave it.

    But new we have someone whose interested in trying to revive it. In trying to do something a little different. In trying to instill pride in the neighborhood, trying to create an environment where it’s enticing for individuals to want to come back there, or enticing for individuals to want to live there.

    So I must commend those individuals for doing that. But if we say we start today and say that we don’t want to start taking care of communities, then tomorrow we’ll be saying we don’t want more technology, and then the following day we’ll be saying we don’t want public safety, and it won’t take us very long to get back to where we were at back when the city first settled.

    So I think this is something that’s a good venture, it’s a good thing for the community, we’ve heard from the community, we’ve seen the actions of the community, we saw it on the news what these communities are doing because they know there’s that light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve seen it on the news. They’ve been reporting it in the media, what this particular community has been doing, and what others around it.

    And you know what? The city partnered with them, to help them generate this kind of energy and this type of excitement and this type of pride.

    So I think this is something that’s good. And I know that there’s always going to be people who are naysayers, that they’re just not going to be happy. And I don’t want you to let let this to discourage you, and I don’t want the comments that have been heard today to discourage the citizens of those neighborhoods. And to continue to doing the great work that they’re doing, and to continue to have faith, and to continue that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that there is a value that just can’t be measured of having pride in your community and pride in your neighborhood, and yes we do have a role to be able to help those individuals trying to help themselves.

  • Liberals Favor Outsourcing

    A press release announcing the new book by Peter Schweizer Makers and Takers contains this sentence:

    Schweizer argues that the failure lies in modern liberal ideas, which foster a self-centered, “if it feels, good do it” attitude that leads liberals to outsource their responsibilities to the government and focus instead on themselves and their own desires.

    What a great insight. Liberals outsourcing their responsibilities to government.

  • Tax Chambers of Commerce, Right Here in Kansas

    This week, Kansas Liberty has a very fine editorial titled The KC Chamber: Enemy of Life, Enemy of Business. Prominent is the mention of the work of my friend the Kansas Meadowlark in revealing the funding of the The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. See Greater Kansas City Chamber PAC, Awash With Cash, Forms New PACs to “Buy” Kansas Elections for the Meadowlark’s original reporting.

    I won’t reveal the entire content of the Kansas Liberty piece, as I urge you to read it in its entirety. But here’s a sample: “Through its well-funded political action committees, the best funded in the area, the Chamber is working to create a high tax environment that is indifferent to small business and the free market and downright hostile to the culture of life.”

    This reminded me of an article from last year. Here’s something from Stephen Moore in the article “Tax Chambers” published in The Wall Street Journal on February 10, 2007:

    The Chamber of Commerce, long a supporter of limited government and low taxes, was part of the coalition backing the Reagan revolution in the 1980s. On the national level, the organization still follows a pro-growth agenda — but thanks to an astonishing political transformation, many chambers of commerce on the state and local level have been abandoning these goals. They’re becoming, in effect, lobbyists for big government.

    …

    In as many as half the states, state taxpayer organizations, free market think tanks and small business leaders now complain bitterly that, on a wide range of issues, chambers of commerce deploy their financial resources and lobbying clout to expand the taxing, spending and regulatory authorities of government. This behavior, they note, erodes the very pro-growth climate necessary for businesses — at least those not connected at the hip with government — to prosper. Journalist Tim Carney agrees: All too often, he notes in his recent book, “Rip-Off,” “state and local chambers have become corrupted by the lure of big dollar corporate welfare schemes.”

    …

    “I used to think that public employee unions like the NEA were the main enemy in the struggle for limited government, competition and private sector solutions,” says Mr. Caldera of the Independence Institute. “I was wrong. Our biggest adversary is the special interest business cartel that labels itself ‘the business community’ and its political machine run by chambers and other industry associations.”

  • Efforts to Regulate ‘Wild West’ Markets are Long Overdue

    A Christian Science Monitor article Efforts to regulate ‘Wild West’ markets are long overdue contains a number of misstatements.

    For one thing, characterization of the American West as “wild” in the sense that mayhem prevailed, and that life and property were not safe, is not correct. An article in the Journal of Libertarian Studies titled An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West tell us this:

    The West during this time often is perceived as a place of great chaos, with little respect for property or life. Our research indicates that this was not the case; property rights were protected and civil order prevailed. Private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved. These agencies often did not qualify as governments because they did not have a legal monopoly on “keeping order.” They soon discovered that “warfare” was a costly way of resolving disputes and lower cost methods of settlement (arbitration, courts, etc.) resulted. In summary, this paper argues that a characterization of the American West as chaotic would appear to be incorrect.

    The article quotes E.J. Dionne as saying “A well-functioning capitalist system relies on clear rules.” Very true, but there are two rules that anyone can understand that are in danger of being overturned. First, if you borrow money, make sure you understand the terms of the loan and are prepared to repay the loan as required. Second, if an institution such as a pension fund buys repackaged securities (like subprime loans) without understanding the risks, they shouldn’t expect others to make good their losses. These two clear principles or rules are in danger of being overturned.

    If they are overturned, then we might ask Mr. Dionne just what rules can be trusted to be clear?

    This article also states: “The oddity of today is that a Republican administration is pushing an expansion of government regulation.” If the author of this article did a little research, he would learn that regulation has increased rapidly in recent years. According to the Heritage Foundation” “Despite the claims of critics — and some supporters — of the Bush Administration, net regulatory burdens have increased in the years since George W. Bush assumed the presidency. Since 2001, the federal government has imposed almost $30 billion in new regulatory costs on Americans. About $11 billion was imposed in fiscal year (FY) 2007 alone.”

    If we look at the root causes of this crises, we would understand that excessive government control in the form of the Federal Reserve is largely responsible for this crisis, such that it is. Now government calls for even more power to solve the problem that it created. These extra powers, pitched to the public as necessary to deal with some current emergency, rarely disappear after the emergency has passed. Instead, they live on as a permanent part of expanded government.

  • Wichita Smoking Ban: Authoritarian, Elitist?

    Here’s some good commentary I received from a citizen. Wichita’s smoking “ban” will take effect before too long.  Smoke ’em while you can, I guess.

    Wichita’s Smoking Ban and the latest authoritarian arrogance emitted by elitist professor

    University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Dr. Rick Kellerman is on the front page of the May 30 Wichita Eagle.  Kellerman is upset that a complete ban on smoking is not expected to be adopted by the city council at their June 3 meeting.

    Who appointed Dr. Kellerman to be Wichita’s doctor?  The doctor’s elitist and authoritarian statement in today’s Wichita Eagle indicates that he is either trying to become the 21st century version of the Prohibition era’s Carrie Nation or the 20th century’s version of the infamous Nurse Ratched (see Ken Kesey’s classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) for improper behavior.  The arguments that Kellerman uses could also be used to ban everything from firearms, cars, risky behaviors from hang gliding to bungee jumping, and a host of activities that free people exercising their freedom in a responsible way may decide to engage in performing.

    While it is a common leftist trait to call their political opponents, “fascists” it is a historical fact that the most famous anti-tobacco and anti-smoking advocate in the first half of the 20th century was Adolf Hitler who was happy to use his tyrannical powers to impose his will upon his subjects.  This was (and is) part of the authoritarian elitism that underlies all totalitarian ideologies.

    Dr. Kellerman’s desire to follow in these footsteps here in Wichita as part of his campaign to destroy invidual liberty, property rights for individuals and business owners, as well as broadly restrict select human freedom.  Dr. Kellerman knows better than the peasants what is good for us.

    Obviously this arrogant professor has never read Thomas Sowell‘s The Vision of the Anointed Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, a book that describes Kellerman’s ideology and elitist arrogance perfectly.  The same issue of the Wichita Eagle has a small story about California’s state senate has passed a ban on smoking within one’s own apartment.  Friendly fascism of the nanny state elitists like Dr. Kellerman are active all across this country.