Tag: United States Congress

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Monday November 15, 2010

    This week at Wichita city council. An Old Town bar faces the possibility of losing its drinking establishment license and two apartment complexes seek city support in the application for housing tax credits. … The old Coleman Company Plant at 250 N. St. Francis faces an obstacle on its path to demolition: The Wichita Historic Preservation Board found that “the demolition of the structure and construction of a surface parking lot does encroach upon, damage, or destroy the environs of the state and national register listed properties by removing distinctive buildings, and altering spatial relationships that characterize the environs.” There were other reasons the board found to oppose the demolition. The building was deemed to be a “character-defining structure.” Furthermore, it is located within 500 feet of historical districts and historical properties. This is the so-called “halo” law, where if your property is located with the environs of another historic property, there are restrictions on what you can do with your property. … In a matter added to the agenda at the last moment, the city will decide whether to pay a Wichita man $925,000 to settle charges that he was injured by actions of the Wichita police department.

    Planning commission to look at downtown plan. This week the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission will have a public hearing on the Goody Clancy plan for the revitalization of downtown Wichita. The meeting is Thursday at 1:30 pm in the tenth floor meeting room at Wichita city hall. The agenda for the meeting is here: Metropolitan Area Planning Commission Agenda, November 18, 2010.

    Kansas tax policy. Various proposals for modifying Kansas’ tax system are floating about. One aspect in particular that is gaining attention is the multitude of sales tax exemptions, where various classes of economic activity or specific named organizations do not have to pay sales tax on their purchases. In Sunday’s Wichita Eagle Rhonda Holman wrote “selected taxpayers are saving $4.2 billion a year, worsening the tax burden for everybody else.” This number is highly misleading. As I explained earlier this year in Kansas sales tax exemptions don’t hold all the advertised allure: “Analysis of the nature of the exemptions and the amounts of money involved, however, leads us to realize that the additional tax revenue that could be raised is much less than spending advocates claim, unless Kansas was to adopt a severely uncompetitive, and in some cases, unproductive tax policy.” … An example is the exemption whereby manufacturers don’t pay sales tax on component parts used in producing final products, with an estimated $2,248.1 million in lost sales tax revenue. If Kansas were to eliminate this exemption, we could very quickly say goodbye to all our manufacturers. … Another example is government not paying sales tax on its purchases, worth an estimated $449.9 million in lost revenue. Reporting from Kansas Reporter on a special committee formed to look at Kansas tax policy is at Kansas tax reform waits on Brownback plans, lawmakers say.

    “Big Ditch” builder to address Pachyderms. At this Friday’s (November 19) meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club, M. S. “Mitch” Mitchell will speak on the topic “The Big Ditch, 60 Years Later.” Otherwise known as the Wichita-Valley Center Flood Control Project, the project is responsible for flood control in Wichita, and Mitchell was there at its building. The public is welcome at Wichita Pachyderm meetings. For more information click on Wichita Pachyderm Club.

    Why I will not teach to the test. A California public school teacher explains why he will not “teach to the test” despite that state’s emphasis on “value added” teacher assessments: “The state tests being used to evaluate student progress — and, in turn, the effectiveness of teachers — virtually ensure mediocrity. … As teachers, we want to know if we are doing a good job. We want to know our strengths and our weaknesses. We welcome accountability. Frankly, I am embarrassed by how hard teachers’ unions have fought to protect weak teachers. It is shameful. But scoring all teachers based on a system that pushes educators to produce memorizers instead of thinkers is not the answer. Worse, it actually rewards mediocre teaching.” No doubt about it, evaluating teachers in public schools is a problem. Being insulated from competition, school administrators may evaluate teachers on all sorts of things except what really matters: how well they do their job. See In public schools, incentives matter.

    Tracking federal tax dollars. According to the Wall Street Journal: “A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 40% thought foreign aid was one of the two largest federal-budget expenses. In reality, Uncle Sam spends $14 on Medicare — itself the second-largest expense — for every dollar spent on foreign aid.” To help citizens understand how federal money is spent, the Journal highlighted an analysis by Third Way, which describes itself as “the leading moderate think-tank of the progressive movement. Top categories for spending? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the national debt. Then some several categories of military spending, which if consolidated, would move higher. The Journal article is Tracking Your Federal Tax Dollars ; the ThirdWay study is at Tax Receipt: Knowing What You Paid For.

    Rasmussen key polls. “Lame duck” session of Congress: “Most voters think Congress should wait until the new members take office in January before tackling any major new legislation, but even more expect Democrats to try to pass major legislation anyway in the upcoming lame-duck session.” More here. … Support for investigation of Obama Administration is not high; breaks down on party lines: Voters Have Mixed Feelings About GOP Plans to Investigate Obama. But voters support investigating the new health care law passed earlier this year: Most Voters Favor Investigation of Health Care Law’s Potential Impact.

    One more vote. The Center for Individual Freedom has launched an initiative called “The 60% Solution,” a proposal for a Constitutional Amendment requiring: a federal balanced budget annually, a 60% vote in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to raise the debt ceiling, and a 60% vote in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to increase taxes or impose new taxes. More information may be found at One More Vote, the name referring to the fact that Congress in 1995 fell just one vote short of endorsing a balanced budget amendment and sending it to the states for ratification. But CFIF warns against a simple balanced budget amendment: “A balanced budget amendment, in the wrong hands or crafted in the wrong form, can unfortunately provide a vehicle for big-government advocates to rationalize higher taxes.”

    Wichita Eagle opinion line.“We have term limits, via voting. We need better-informed voters. Voters need to educate themselves as to the issues and the people who are running for certain offices.” This sentiment is repeated after each election. The fact that voters, at least according to this opinion, don’t inform themselves year after year is a strong argument for term limits.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Monday November 8, 2010

    Case for private beautification. Paul Marcotte of Wichita writes in with a way the City of Wichita could reduce capital costs and on-going costs: “Why is it that when we do street work in Wichita, that we have to decorate the center of the streets with landscaping? That includes the 12 feet or so on each side of the curbs. I see tree crews out all over Wichita cutting back or down the trees that have grown either out into the streets and obstruct traffic, or grown up into the power lines. The power company sends out a tree planting guideline with my bill that asks not to plant trees under the lines but we do it on every new project in Wichita. Also, the landscaping in the middle of the lanes in unnecessary. It ensures that someone will have to be hired to take care of that landscaping. I asked the City of Wichita about this and they said that there aren’t enough trees in Wichita and they had to beautify the city. Have they ever seen an aerial view of the city? There are more than enough trees. We don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to landscape the streets of Wichita. Streets should be functional, not beautiful. Let the 400,000 or so citizens of Wichita beautify the city. They already do, at their own expense.”

    Airport security gone awry. Mike Smith, who usually writes about weather, climate and science on his blog Meteorological Musings, also has some good posts about airport security. He refers to it as it as “‘security theatre’ — designed to make us feel secure without actually making us secure.” It’s a violation of dignity, too. After a woman complained of a pat down search, an airport representative said: “I think this is the first time that I’ve heard of anybody that didn’t enjoy the experience.” Pilots don’t like it, with their advocacy group objecting to “needless privacy invasion and potential health risks caused by the AIT [nude imaging] body scanners. Smith concludes: “It is time to stop this madness and this threat to civil liberties. Dial the passenger part of airport security back to where it was prior to September 11, keep the screening of checked luggage, and increase the scrutiny of parcels shipped on passenger aircraft and the people who service passenger aircraft. Doing so would actually make us safer than we are now.”

    Rasmussen key polls. It seems the the U.S. voting public is a surly lot without a lot of hope for the future, despite the results of the election. “Most voters are not confident that President Obama can work with the new Republican majority in the House to do what’s best for the American people.” More here. “Most voters say today’s election is a referendum on President Obama’s agenda and that he should change course if Republicans win control of the House. But most also don’t expect him to make that change.” More here. Finally, “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds, in fact, that 59% of Likely U.S. Voters think it is at least somewhat likely that most voters will be disappointed with Republicans in Congress before the next national elections. That includes 38% who say it is Very Likely.?” The details of this poll are here.

    Pelosi to seek leadership position When you’re used to wielding a big gavel, changes comes only with difficulty, it seems. Writes the Wall Street Journal: “Ms. Pelosi’s announcement came as a surprise after an election that saw her party lose 60 House seats, with a handful of races still too close to call. Past House speakers have left Congress entirely after similar drubbings, and some Democratic critics had called on Ms. Pelosi to step aside.” Many conservative Democrats — Blue Dogs — retired or were defeated, so the Democratic caucus is more liberal than before, notes the Journal. “‘This was an earthquake of an election,’ said Rep. Jim Matheson (D., Utah), chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition. ‘When you suffer this kind of loss, you’ve got to shake up your leadership.”

  • Last-minute Kansas fourth district campaign finance

    Analysis of late campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission finds Republican Mike Pompeo raising more money than rival Democrat Raj Goyle in the campaign for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas.

    The candidates filed reports covering the period October 1, 2010 through October 13, 2010. These reports showed Pompeo raising $153,535 and Goyle $92,491 during that time frame. Ending cash balances on this report were Pompeo with $500,939 and Goyle with $133,095.

    Since then, the candidates have filed several “48 hour notice” reports. The total of these reports through October 31 have Pompeo raising $141,250 and Goyle $84,101.

    Pompeo also leads Goyle in polls. See Pompeo increases lead over Goyle in Kansas fourth.

  • Pompeo increases lead over Goyle in Kansas fourth

    Today KWCH Television and SurveyUSA released a poll surveying the candidates for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas. The results show Republican Mike Pompeo increasing his lead over challenger Raj Goyle, the Democratic Party nominee.

    Today’s poll — likely to be the last before Election Day — shows Pompeo increasing his share of the vote from 53 percent to 54 percent, compared to the previous poll released by the same organization 21 days earlier. Goyle’s share dropped from 40 percent to 38 percent. In this poll, the sampling error is 4.3 percent.

    Only two percent of the voters are undecided.

    Other results from the poll include Reform party candidate Susan Ducey with three percent, and Libertarian Shawn Smith checking in with two percent.

    As of October 27, the FiveThirtyEight analysis of this race puts Pompeo ahead of Goyle 61.2 percent to 36.2 percent. The probability of a Pompeo win is given as 99.5 percent. FiveThirtyEight uses KWCH/SurveyUSA polls as part of its input, but considers many other factors too. This forecast does not include today’s KWCH/SurveyUSA results.

    Kansas fourth district Congressional pollKansas fourth district Congressional poll
  • Business can oppose incentives and use them

    In the campaign for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas, Democrat Raj Goyle criticizes leading opponent Republican Mike Pompeo for accepting economic development incentives while opposing their existence.

    A Goyle press release reads: “Already a known outsourcer, Pompeo, in an act of hypocrisy, took government incentivized aid for three of his companies, including Sunflower, Thayer and Sentry. He did this despite repeatedly denouncing government assistance in the private sector.”

    This criticism — that those who oppose government programs nonetheless hypocritically take advantage of them — is an important topic to examine, not only as a campaign issue, but because the conflict that leads to this form of criticism arises often. It’s something that libertarians struggle with daily — and I don’t think Mike Pompeo would describe himself as libertarian.

    In an article examining whether presidential candidate Ron Paul should accept federal matching campaign funds, the libertarian scholar Walter Block described the pervasiveness of government and the impossibility of escaping it:

    For the modern state is so involved in the lives of its citizens that it is the rare individual who does not accept some form of government largesse, whether in the form of money payments, services, or goods of one type or another.

    For example, while not everyone goes to a public school or teaches there, it is the rare individual who does not: walk on statist sidewalks, drive on public roads, carry currency in his pocket, avail himself of the services of governmental libraries, museums, parks, stadiums, etc. Which of us has not entered the premises of the motor vehicle bureau, sued someone in court, posted a letter, attempted to attain a passport, or interacted with government in any of the thousand and one other ways it touches upon our lives?

    This hints at part of the conflict — angst even — that libertarians digest internally as we go about our business in a world dominated by government. I, for example, firmly believe that we would be better off with private ownership of the streets and highways. Each time I drive my car from my driveway onto the government street in front of my house, I think of this. I get it. I understand the conflict that government thrusts on me. It bothers me daily.

    But there’s no other way for me to get to where I want to go. I’m consoled somewhat by the fact that the motor fuel taxes I paid go to building and maintaining the roads. This doesn’t mean, however, that I agree that our system of primarily government ownership of streets and highways is the best system. But it’s the system I am forced to live with, and I try to change it.

    Business firms are generally aware, although not always, of government incentives available for economic development. These incentives are part of the economic and political landscape that business firms face. They have to be recognized and dealt with, just like any other factor such as regulation. If business firm “A” decides not to accept incentives and subsidies when firm “B” does, is this wise, even if accepting subsidy is against the principles of firm “A”?

    I would recommend firm “A” to apply for and accept the subsidy. For one thing, if firm “A” is a public corporation and doesn’t pursue these incentives when they are available, the company is likely to be sued by its shareholders.

    Second, these subsidies are part of the competitive landscape. Even though from a libertarian and conservative view they are wrong and harmful, they still exist. It does no good for a firm to pretend they don’t exist and thereby create a competitive disadvantage for itself. This is especially the case if firms “A” and “B” are direct competitors in the same industry. But even if they are not, these two firms still compete in the same markets for land, labor, capital, and other generic factors.

    Third, firm “A,” like all of us, is paying for these incentives and subsidies. While this may seem like conceding to the power of the state, firm “A” might as well get some back of what it paid for.

    So yes, business firms need to use government incentives and subsidies. At the same time, we need to work for the elimination of these programs. This is difficult, as the more government becomes involved in management and direction of the economy, it becomes harder to get government to stop. We see this in play at Wichita city hall, as more and more firms ask the city council for various forms of assistance or corporate welfare.

    The fight is important, too. The factors that made our country and its economy great are at peril. Gary North wrote in The Snare of Government Subsidies: “… those within the government possess an extremely potent device for expanding political power. By a comprehensive program of direct political intervention into the market, government officials can steadily reduce the opposition of businessmen to the transformation of the market into a bureaucratic, regulated, and even centrally-directed organization. Bureaucracy replaces entrepreneurship as the principal form of economic planning.”

    Returning to the politics of the day: Isn’t is a little strange to hear Goyle, who favors expansion of public-private partnerships, criticize those who use them, even if they are opposed to the idea in principle? Doesn’t Goyle want everyone to be in “the snare” that North describes?

  • Goyle on Social Security protection

    Raj Goyle, candidate for U.S. Congress from Kansas, pledges to protect Social Security from changes, including partial privatization and increases in the retirement age. On his campaign website, he says we must work in a “bipartisan, responsible way to adjust Social Security to ensure its long-term stability.” Goyle’s website doesn’t say this, but the only way to make these adjustments is to increases taxes or the deficit — which pushes taxation off to the future.

    Goyle’s opponents in the campaign for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas are Reform party candidate Susan Ducey, Republican Mike Pompeo, and Libertarian Shawn Smith.

    In his pledge, Goyle promises to “work for real solutions that strengthen Social Security for the long term.” Specifically, he pledges to oppose all efforts at privatization and raising the retirement age to 70.

    The problem is that after ruling out reforms like these, there’s not much left to do except to raise taxes or borrow more. Evidence of this can be found in an editorial from the Los Angeles Times recently printed by the Wichita Eagle. Titled Ignore fearmongering on Social Security, it mostly looks back at opposition to the formation of the Social Security system 75 years ago.

    But the article recognizes that the system needs “minor adjustments” to remain solvent. The authors write: “Economists say that raising the income ceiling on the payroll tax, applying the Social Security tax to nonwage income or adding a modest increase to the payroll tax could add decades to the health of the Social Security trust fund.”

    Each of these policy changes is a tax increase. The article lists no other solutions than these.

    These recommendations are not Goyle’s. He hasn’t said what he would do to place the system on a sound financial footing, although he uses the same term — “adjustments” — as does the Times editorial.

    But the reality is there’s not much that we can do except raise taxes or increase the deficit if we want to keep the current system.

    We need to do something quickly. Social Security will pay out more in benefits this year than it receives in contributions from payroll taxes. It had been thought that this milestone would not be reached until 2017 or later.

    There are those who cite the Social Security trust fund and its large balance of over $2 trillion as evidence that the system is doing well. Goyle himself recently mentioned that Social Security would be solvent for the next 30 years. Goyle didn’t mention the trust fund, but that is the source of the system’s purported solvency.

    The problem is, as Thomas Sowell explains, the trust fund is merely an illusion. The money in the fund has already been spent by government agencies. The only way they can pay back the fund is through tax revenues or additional borrowing, which increases the deficit and pushes taxes to future generations.

    It’s not as though most Republicans are confronting the problem head-on. One of the few officeholders willing to do so is Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who is ranking member of the House Budget Committee. His Roadmap for America’s future is a plan that recognizes the seriousness of the current situation, not only with Social Security, but in other areas of the federal budget.

    His recommendations, specific as they are, cause consternation among some Republicans who would rather talk about problems in general terms rather than specifics. A recent Washington Post profile of Ryan referred to “… many Republican colleagues, who, even as they praise Ryan for his doggedness, privately consider the Roadmap a path to electoral disaster. Unlike most politicians of either party, he doesn’t speak generically about reducing spending, but he does acknowledge the very real cuts in popular programs that will be required to bring down the debt.”

    That frank talk about the budget and government spending might be an electoral disaster is a bad sign for America. We need Raj Goyle to be specific about his plans for Social Security adjustments, too.

  • Goyle continues to raise majority of funds from outside Kansas

    In the campaign for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas, Democrat Raj Goyle continues to gather most of his campaign funds from outside Kansas, although the margin of out-of-state funds is less than before.

    Goyle and and Republican Mike Pompeo recently filed campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission. (Reform party candidate Susan Ducey and Libertarian Shawn Smith have not filed reports.) While anyone may download and analyze the FEC data, OpenSecrets.org is a helpful resource in understanding campaign finance data.

    Here are the third quarter and overall campaign finance numbers for the Goyle and Pompeo campaigns. The figures below for the “Election cycle” columns are from OpenSecrets.org, and are slightly different from what I reported Saturday:

                      Third quarter        Election cycle
                      Goyle   Pompeo      Goyle     Pompeo
    Opening balance 749,493  286,032          0          0
    Contributions   368,902  921,943  1,624,304  1,857,027
    Expenditures    776,772  692,669  1,282,683  1,321,722
    Cash balance    341,623  535,306    341,622    535,306
    

    According to OpenSecrets.org analysis, both candidates received 11 percent of their contributions from political action committees (PACs), with the remaining being individual contributions.

    Funds from outside Kansas

    When I took a look at the sources of campaign funds in August, OpenSecrets.org calculated that 70 percent of Goyle’s contributions came from outside Kansas. The corresponding figure for Pompeo was 21 percent. OpenSecrets.org’s analysis has not been updated to include the most recent figures. My rough analysis indicates that for funds raised in the most recent reporting period, 60 percent of Goyle’s contributions came from outside Kansas. For Pompeo, the corresponding figure is 25 percent.

  • Outsourcing Kansas jobs

    In the campaign for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas, Democrat Raj Goyle uses the issue of outsourcing of Kansas jobs as his main issue against Republican Mike Pompeo.

    Goyle’s criticism of Pompeo is based on a claim that Pompeo could have created jobs in Kansas, but instead chose to create them in Mexico and China. The latest allegations are regarding Sentry International, a company servicing the oilfield industry. Pompeo is currently president of that company.

    A lengthy page on Goyle’s campaign website details the allegations. Some of the criticism Goyle levels against Pompeo is for things that many Kansans would applaud.

    For example, one piece of Goyle’s evidence or criticism is this: “In February 2008, the Wichita Eagle reported that Sentry International sold mostly in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas until Pompeo came on board as President. After that, the company began selling in other states and international markets.”

    Normally, we would applaud a company growing its markets and sales. But evidently to Goyle, a Kansas company expanding is not good news.

    Goyle’s argument then proceeds to criticize Sentry International for manufacturing some of the equipment it sells overseas, when it could — according to Goyle — be made in Kansas. He further claims that trade with China has cost Kansas jobs.

    So far the only plan Goyle has advanced for stopping outsourcing is to eliminate the deferral of taxation of income that U.S. companies earn overseas. Currently, companies pay the host country’s tax, and then pay the difference between that tax and the U.S. tax when those profits are transferred to the U.S. Goyle — following President Obama’s lead — would do away with this referral.

    The problem is that this action will probably drive more jobs overseas. The Wall Street Journal reported that when this tax deferral was eliminated to the U.S. shipping industry, the results was “a real disaster for U.S. shipping,” with U.S. shipping capacity falling by 50 percent over a period of years following this reform.

    A case study on the effects of eliminating the deferral on the U.S. shipping industry concluded:

    • In a competitive industry, taxing U.S.-owned operations at non-competitive international tax rates simply diminishes U.S. activity and advantages our foreign competitors.
    • Reduced U.S. operations result in reduced employment and lower wages for American workers.
    • Non-competitive international taxation of U.S. businesses leads to a lower standard of living for American workers.

    In addition, the case study finds: “Recent analyses indicate that the 2004 legislation restoring deferral for foreign shipping income is reversing the decline in the U.S. shipping industry.”

    Part of the problem is that U.S. corporate tax rates are highest in the developed world, next to Japan. Lowering U.S. tax rates — instead of increasing them, as Goyle advocates — would spur investment, including investment by foreign companies in the U.S.

    Does outsourcing cost U.S. jobs?

    Matthew J. Slaughter of Dartmouth University has researched and written extensively on outsourcing and its effects. Writing in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year about outsourcing and President Obama’s proposal to do away with the tax deferral — that’s the only solution Goyle is proposing — Slaughter wrote:

    The fundamental assumption behind these proposals is that U.S. multinationals expand abroad only to “export” jobs out of the country. Thus, taxing their foreign operations more would boost tax revenues here and create desperately needed U.S. jobs.

    This is simply wrong. These tax increases would not create American jobs, they would destroy them.

    Academic research, including most recently by Harvard’s Mihir Desai and Fritz Foley and University of Michigan’s James Hines, has consistently found that expansion abroad by U.S. multinationals tends to support jobs based in the U.S. More investment and employment abroad is strongly associated with more investment and employment in American parent companies.

    When parent firms based in the U.S. hire workers in their foreign affiliates, the skills and occupations of these workers are often complementary; they aren’t substitutes. More hiring abroad stimulates more U.S. hiring. … To climb out of the recession, we need to create millions of the kinds of jobs that U.S. multinationals tend to create. Economic policy on all fronts should be encouraging job growth by these firms. The proposed international-tax reforms do precisely the opposite.

    So while many people assume that when a U.S. company creates a job overseas it means one lost American job, that is simply not the case.

    Protectionism — the next step?

    Any plan to protect U.S. jobs from being sent overseas will have to resort to protectionist measures such as tariffs on imported goods. Goyle hasn’t advocated this. Instead, he has simply criticized his major opponent for running a global business, and has not advanced a plan to protect U.S. jobs except for eliminating the tax deferral. As we’ve seen above, that would harm U.S. job growth instead of helping.

    What advocates of protectionism fail to realize is that trade is a two way street. It benefits both parties, or the transactions would not take place. And when governments try to intervene and restrict trade, everyone is hurt.

    When President George W. Bush placed tariffs on imported steel in 2002, it was seen as a political move to protect steel-making jobs in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, two states he needed for his reelection, according to Washington Post analysis.

    As a result of the tariff, steel-making jobs were saved. But jobs in steel-using industries were lost, and U.S. consumers paid more for products that contained steel.

    When President Obama imposed tariffs on Chinese tires last year, he increased the cost of those tires for U.S. consumers. While this undoubtedly saved U.S. tire-making jobs, U.S. consumers of Chinese tires pay more. As these tires are primarily at the lower range of prices, it is mostly low income consumers who have to pay more to prop up U.S. tire worker jobs.

    Then even more harm arises. China — perhaps in retaliation — has imposed tariffs on imported chicken. According to the New York Times, “The commerce ministry started the investigation less than two days after President Obama imposed steep tariffs on Chinese tires a year ago. Chinese officials have denied that the inquiry was in retaliation, but poultry is one of the few categories in which the United States runs a trade surplus with China, making it an ideal target for Chinese trade actions.”

    While protectionist rhetoric sounds good to workers who are facing pressure from overseas competitors, we again have to remember that trade is a two way street. We also need to be aware that locally, Wichita exports a lot airplanes. If foreign nations were to restrict imports of U.S. aircraft, that would seriously harm the prospects of Wichita’s aviation industry. Kansas farmers, too, are exporters.

    This is what the harsh reality of economics tell us — and there’s a reason why it’s called “the dismal science.”

    The politics, however, are on Goyle’s side. As recently reported: “A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Sept. 28 found that outsourcing was the top reason cited by Americans as the cause of the country’s economic problems — and that for the first time in years a majority (53%) of Americans say free-trade agreements have hurt the U.S.”

    The residents of the fourth district of Kansas need to ask Goyle what specifically will he do to retain jobs in Kansas, and what will be the economic impact of these policies. All evidence tells us that the result will be harmful to Kansas and America.

  • Goyle, Pompeo file campaign finance reports

    Here’s a summary of the campaign finance reports filed on October 16, 2010 for candidates for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas, Democrat Raj Goyle and Republican Mike Pompeo.

                      Third quarter        Election cycle
                      Goyle   Pompeo      Goyle     Pompeo
    Opening balance 749,493  286,032          0          0
    Contributions   368,902  921,943  1,624,308  1,877,030
    Expenditures    776,772  692,669  1,283,027  1,341,724
    Cash balance    341,623  535,306    341,623    535,306
    

    The “third quarter period” was from July 15, 2010 to September 30, 2010.

    Pompeo raised much more — 2.5 times as much — than Goyle during this period, which was necessary as Pompeo was engaged in a competitive primary election and spent nearly all his funds in that effort. For the entire election cycle, the amounts raised are fairly close.

    For expenditures during this reporting period, Goyle spent slightly more — about 12 percent more — than Pompeo.

    Going forward, Pompeo has a cash balance (as of September 30) $193,683 (57 percent) greater than Goyle.

    Soon the campaigns will start filing reports of contributions received almost daily as last-minute contributions are received.