Poletown Logic Won't Die Without a Fight.
The City of Toledo (OH) is ready to use its eminent domain powers to take from the small and give to the mighty. (In this case, a small auto repair shop may be stripped from its owners and given to automotive behometh Chrysler).

Seizing the property of one private party and giving it to another has long been rationalized by a 1981 supreme court case in Michigan, called Poletown. The decision has been cited in other states as a rationale to bless similar actions.

Recently, Michigan's court reversed itself. Will Toledo now back away from its plan? Hardly. Kip Esquire picks up the story, noting the rule of hypocrisy: cite Poletown when it justifies eminent domain abuse, but ignore it once it turns against the schemes of official planners. (permalink)

Are You Too Greedy To Take Care of Yourself?
A fundamental question in health care reform is whether people will be free to make their own decisions, rather than use health care systems selected for them by employers or governments.

That decision in turn depends on the "official" view of whether people would be responsible if allowed more latitude.

Here it's time to bring in a column from the New York Post, which provides a glimpse of what Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House, has to say on the subject.

In his book, Hastert has tough words for Clinton, Schumer and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).

Hastert writes that Clinton appointed him to a spot on her health-care task force ? and then promptly ignored his suggestions.

When he told her about his support for private medical savings accounts, he says, she ruled out the idea by saying Americans are "too greedy."

"People are basically greedy and won't make the tough decisions," Hastert paraphrases her. In his interview, Hastert said, "Mrs. Clinton brushed me off. She said you can't trust people."

A Clinton spokesman last night denied she had made those comments.

Hastert said Clinton told him that people would avoid inoculating their kids or taking their spouses to the doctor's office because they knew they could keep any unspent money in their accounts.

In addition, "she said the federal government will spend the money better than the private sector can," Hastert claimed.

If those words were not actually exchanged, the sentiments live on in the debate over health care policy. In a country of 300 million people, a few people may be "too greedy," and prefer miserly hoarding over seeking care when appropriate. But making policy on the basis of what a handful of people might do is not a good idea. (Hat tip: KipEsquire's A Stitch in Haste). (permalink)

The Source for Outsourcing.
Offshoring? McWorld? Americanization? Sweatshops? Genetically-modified foods? If you're looking for a non-technical introduction to these and other topics related to cross-national trade, I've got a web site to suggest. I just came across it, so I haven't done a thorough review, but it looks useful.

The Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) has developed A World Connected to discuss some of the hot issues in economics, business, trade, culture, and foreign policy. It's got pro-and-con treatments, profiles of social entrepreneurs, and

The Sweatshops and Globalization section asks the question of "whether or not it?s fair for big western companies to benefit from cheap labor in the developing world.

What's the difference between free trade and fair trade?

Does globalization destroy the cultures of the world?

Does foreign trade destroy jobs? How about outsourcing, or as it is now called (when another country is involved), offshoring?

The site's attitude is seen here:
"AWorldConnected recognizes that although participants in the globalization debate are typically divided into anti-globalization and pro-globalization camps, globalization is far too complex to simply choose sides.

"Our perspective cuts across ideologies and the traditional left/right political divide. We have a deep and abiding respect for the basic human desire to rise out of want and bondage, to overcome restrictions in order to reach human potential. Our vision is inspired by the ideas of universal freedom and voluntary exchange, and our project is driven by the real-life stories of individuals struggling for self-determination and success, however they might define it." (permalink)

Budget Deficit Calls for Structural Reforms
Michigan's new fiscal year starts in just over a month--and the state is already in a bind, with a projected deficit of $1 billion. This structural problem won't go away without significant reforms, as I argue in today's Holland Sentinel. (permalink)

The Folly of Municipal Golf Courses Taken to a New Level.
Though golf has been called "the least essential of non-essential services" offered by government, defenders of politically-run government golf still find excuses. I've heard of the need for junior players to learn the game. There's also the alleged need to provide an affordable alternative for people of more modest means. (Why should government be involved in providing for my recreation, though?)

The Village of Bolingbrook, a distant suburb of Chicago, now has its own, village-run golf course. It sure looks nice, and at $65 a round (a discounted rate for village residents), it flunks the "affordability" test, at least for hackers like me.

So what was the rationalization offered here? The municipal government needs to build luxury golf course to distinguish its city from everyone else.

Says the mayor of Bolingbrook, "This is my baby. And it is such a hoot." Hizzoner, Mayor Roger Claar, has spent ten years in office working on this project. (That's a tremendous opportunity cost to pay--how much time could have been spent on other village work?)

"This course is now a symbol of community pride," Claar boasts. It is, apparently, a way to set the village apart from the hundreds of other suburbs in Chicagoland.

What if every city in a region builds a course? Or perhaps a premier concer theater? Then we have a "government luxury goods" contest. The result: government gets further away from its mission and core competency, and does more to tread into areas best left to the civil society.

Golf Illinois has a favorable review and provides more information on its construction.

Labels: Golf

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What's Enhanced Teacher Certification Worth? Not Much.
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) offers an added-on certification for teachers. Some states and school districts rely on the certification as a way of identifying superior teachers.

George Leef has reviewed a recent study on the topic, and isn't impressed. He quotes two scholars who wrote for the Urban Institute: "Going through the NBPTS certification process does not appear to make a teacher more effective."

NBPTS certication is costly--roughly $2,000 in fees along, which are often borne by the state or a school system. It has continuing costs, too; teachers can often get a bump in their pay scale by achieving the certification.

But relying on another layer of certification is going back to the tired old model that education policy has relied upon: focusing on inputs (in this case, a teacher's educational background, usually steeped not in subject matter but in pedagogy) rather than how effective teachers and schools are at educating students.

Labels: Education

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Initiative Process Under Fire in Michigan.
Michigan's tradition of citizen-initiated ballot proposals has come under fire from a bipartisan challenge.

Under the initiative process, groups of citizens who obtain a sufficient number of petition signatures from registered voters can place a measure on a statewide ballot, bypassing the legislature.

In recent years, the state canvassing board (which certifies that a petition drive has met the required number of citizens), the courts, and the legislature have, in various ways, politicized the process by which measures make it to the ballot.

The Mackinac Center has a review of this bipartisan approach, which involves both conservatives and liberals. (permalink)

No Child Left Behind -- or is it No Bureaucrat?
So how is the No Child Left Behind Act doing? Here's what the Detroit News has to say in its review.

"The $26 billion program, one of the first major initiatives enacted by the Bush administration, holds all schools to tight performance standards, sets training and certification rules for teachers, and mandates that schools show steady progress year-to-year.

Terrific goals. But education is a local responsibility. There's little evidence so far that the feds are doing any better at meeting those goals than the states were themselves.

No Child Left Behind received mixed grades in an analysis by the nonpartisan Education Commission of the States. Most states are meeting - or on their way to meeting - 75 percent of the new requirements.

But some key requirements are nowhere near being met. No states, for example, are on track to increase the percentage of highly qualified teachers, a key requirement of the law. Part of the problem is that the federal government has been unable to define what constitutes a highly qualified teacher.

For their part, teachers say the mandate that every one of the nation's 53 million students meet federal standards on tests, with no consideration for varying abilities, social conditions and local resources, is unrealistic and impossible to meet. They're probably right.

Setting goals that can't be met only leads to frustration and wasted resources."

So can states simply opt out? Well, yes, and no. Legally, they can, but then they lose lots of federal money, some of which, as the News points out, comes from within the state itself. Just another example of the "Golden Rule" at work.

And there's a lot of "gold" being spent. The News continues:

"The overall tab for unfunded federal mandates under No Child Left Behind is pegged at $9.6 billion by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan group.

At $50,000 per teacher, the $9.6 billion could pay the annual salary of 192,000 teachers. Or be used in other ways that local districts determine to be best for their children."

Better yet, parents (not districts) are best able to determine what is best for their children. But if we're going to have government control, it's bettter to have it done at a local level. The higher-up the decisions are made, the more ossified the structures and rules become, impairing educational performance and entrapping everyone in red tape. (permalink)

Infatuation with Transit Stalls Road Projects
Trapped in traffic? See a road that could be widened, but isn't? Perhaps the fault lies with insufficient tax revenues to fund the project. Or maybe it's just the result of misguided efforts that hold road projects hostage to ineffective public transit.

In Michigan, the Detroit News editorial board laments obstacles to widening Interstate 75 in Oakland County, the most widely-travelled road in the state.

"The Oakland stretch of I-75 is jammed with 200,000 commuters a day, bustle spawned by the county’s successful economy including 116,000 new jobs in the 1990s alone."

Regional planners are on record of supporting the addition of more lanes. So why has the project stalled? Calls to spend $2 billion on a bus system--and that's the cheapest transit option.

Meanwhile, Interstate 35 in Minnesota is split between the two Twin Cities. Both are crowded, but the western trunk, called I-35W, is perhaps the most clogged. The logical path is to expand that road, but the state can't. Why? The City of Minneapolis, through which the road travels, insists that money first be spent on more bus service. The Taxpayers League of Minnesota isn't impressed by the state law that gives the city veto power over a project that affects thousands of state residents

Labels: Transportation

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The Value of Charter Schools
The nation's second largest union has tried to debunk the success of charter schools, but at least one man isn't buying the critique.

John Hood, of the North Carolina-based John Locke Foundation, offers some thoughts and links to other responses to the American Federatio of Teachers.

His fundamental point is a moral one:

"The issue of parental choice in education has attracted significant debate for decades. In an odd way, however, the parental part often gets lost. There are dueling philosophies of public education, dueling assertions about the value of competition and markets, hosts of articles and studies looking at spending and achievement. But if advocates of choice are correct, then the ultimate test of educational success or failure lies with the evaluations of parents – parents who don’t necessarily share the same goals, values, situations, or respect for standardized tests."

He also raises some methodological questions that I hope to get to eventually. In short, while the AFT study suggests that charter school students would be better off in their old districts, there are reasons to believe that the comparisons made are flawed ones.

Labels: Charter schools, Education, School choice

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What to Do with 46 Million Ex-Cons?
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) today reports on the changing work world: the number of large companies demanding criminal background checks on applicant has gone from 56 percent in 1996 to roughly 80 percent today.

Is that a good thing? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Thanks to competitive and technological developments, a background check can be had for as little as $25, and the price is dropping. So you may be in for a vetting in the future, if you have not already.

Obviously doing a background check can be useful for some jobs, such teaching minor children or handling large sums of money. But even then a background check is not perfect. By definition, a first-time criminal has a clean record.

The desire to deal with crime-free employees can take absurd lengths. A proposal in South Carolina, for example, would require "all retailers that sell toys or children's clothing" to conduct checks. A lot of retailers sell those wares, and most employees there have little or no contact with children. (Think, for example, of someone who works daytime hours in the costumer-service and returns department of your local Sears department store.)

Wal-Mart, the largest private employer, has announced that it will run checks on all applicants, starting next month. It promises, though, that a person with a criminal record may still be hired, depending on the specifics of the crime, when it happened, and what kind of job the person is applying for. Well, this makes sense--no Enron accountants in the financial department, but yes to a job unloading merchandise, for example.

As one advocate for ex-cons put it, "Forty-six million people in this country have been convicted of something sometime in their lives and our economy would collapse if none of them could get jobs." So would the social fabric. As the work of Prison Fellowship can attest, many (though certainly not all) people convicted of a crime can make good and become productive citizens. But the current legal climate may discourage companies from offering some of them a second chance. (permalink)

Phone World Outlives Regulatory Age.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) describes the challenge to the old ways of the telephone business. Though it doesn't address the regulatory questions, it does present some startling numbers.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is making headway, particularly in specific cities. In Portland, Maine, one out of every eight residents has phone service from the cable tv company. In Omaha, Nebraska, more people get telephone service from their cable tv company than the traditional phone company.

In this zero-sum game, phone companies are taking a beating. The Bells have lost 18 percent of their local phone lines (about 28 million) since the end of 2000. They are losing customers are the rate of 4 percent a year. (permalink)

In Defense of Cell Phones.
Jon Caldara suggests that etiquette, rather than law, is the way to deal with questions surrounding cell phone use.

Writing from Boulder, Colorado (in other words, a college town), Caldara notes the selective tolerance of our age. "A lot of folks are put off by other people using cell phones. We live in a world of selective tolerance. Cross dressers — tolerate. Smokers — don't tolerate. Bald guys in robes banging bongos on the Pearl Street Mall — tolerate. Guys on cell phone — don't tolerate." (permalink)

What Do College Rankings Tell Us? Not Much.
Every year, U.S. News & World Report comes out with its issue of "America's Best Colleges." But their flawed methodology shows the weakness with which we evaluate education of all levels.

Writing for the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, George Leef and Michael Lowrey examine (PDF) the US News approach, and find that it's worth much.

So what's the problem? Here's what the authors have to say in a summary of an e-mail announcing the report: "In preparing its rankings, U.S. News relies on six factors. Four of those factors are input measurements: financial resources, alumni giving, faculty resources, and student quality. One is an output measurement (student retention and graduation rates) and one is a subjective guess (academic reputation). Not one of the factors purports to measure the thing that academic quality is centrally about, namely learning."

(The emphasis on inputs, rather than results, is a problem of K-12 education as well.)

So what is a college bound-student to do? Dig deeper, Leef and Lowrey advise. Are classes taught predominantly by graduate students, or professors? (In other words, does the incentive system for professors place sufficient value on teaching?) Is there an oppressive speech code that hinders debate? Is "Partying" the most popular major on campus? Finding the answers to some of the questions on the list may require the student to consult a more knowledgeable person. For example, do the syllabi of key courses suggest a numbing bias on questions within the discipline, or do they indicate a healthy debate that will expose students to competing theories?

For parents and students alike, these questions are not "merely academic." They are literally $100,000 (and more) questions. (permalink)

Welcome South Dakota Readers.
Welcome readers of the South Dakota Politics blog who dropped by thanks to the note from Jason Van Beek.

I tend to think that a specialized blog can be a better read than one that wanders across the "political" world. I try to not cover material that gets a lot of attention in the "political" or opinion press. So there's not much here about which candidate is doing what, or who is leading in the public opinion polls, or whether or not the press is liberal, conservative, or just plain lousy.

So what is this blog about? It's a place to post comments and research notes about K-12 education, health care, transportation, fiscal matters, and so forth. I try to focus specifically on the Great Lakes states, though interesting and innovative policy can occur anywhere in the country.

The style, tone, and viewpoint can be .... well, browse the current archives and see for yourself. A masters in public administration is not required.

Of course, there is room for political blogs, and South Dakota Politics is a good example of how such a blog can add value to the public world. It can be especially useful in thinly-populated states with a few "establishment" media outlets, as I pointed out in a post at the Detroit News weblog. (permalink)

Is Below-Average Education Funding Immoral?
When citizens asked if a proposed state lottery in Oklahoma would be immoral, the governor's finance director answered with another question: "The morality of this is not a question of whether gambling is good or evil. Is it not immoral to have the lowest-funded education system in America?"

Brandon Dutcher, research director of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, replies in the negative, and has some questions of his own.

"Is it not immoral," he asks, "to extract increasing sums of money from Oklahoma citizens and continually give them a lousy return on investment?"

"Is it not immoral to keep children trapped in schools that won’t teach and won’t change?" (permalink)

Don't Just Plug a Budget Hole. Restructure the Budget.
Michigan's legislative leaders and the governor need to come up with another $1 billion in new revenue or budget cuts for the fiscal year that doesn't start for over a month from now. I offer some thoughts on this for the Mackinac Center. (permalink)

Reading, 'Riting, and Group Psychology
One problem with K-12 public education is its obsession with fads. For example, building student "self-esteem" is considered a valuable pursuit of teachers and everyone else at school.

For example, the Boston Globe reports that there is a move for teachers to use purple pens rather than red ones for correcting papers. The reason? "if you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," says one teacher.

While the tradition of red ink as a marking tool goes back to the 18th century, a teacher in Florida says ""Red has a negative connotation, and we want to promote self-confidence. I like purple. I use purple a lot."

One parent, though, expresses a contrary view as she reviews her childhood: "I hate red. But because I hate it, I want to work harder to make sure there isn't any red on my papers."

Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee reports that concern for self-esteem (not to mention liability) is leading schools dramatically restructure recess, larding it with rules that ban "tag, dodgeball and any game involving bodily contact." Among the most ludicrous results: at one school, no student is allowed to help another out by giving her a push on the swing.

The article continues that "Experts say free play helps kids learn how to cooperate, socialize and work out conflicts." But by imposing various rules, and making sure that all play is intensely supervised, that learning process is short-circuted.

Of course, discipline problems become more acute when schools grow to the size of enormous, as is the case with one school noted in the story. It has 1,200 students!

Among the possible solutions to this odd state of affairs: give parents more flexibility over what kind of school environment they want, by increasing school choice.

Labels: Education, School choice

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Altering "No Child" To Include Parental Satisfaction.
John Kerry suggests altering the provisions of the No Child Left Behind act to include parental satisfaction as a measure of public school progress.

That's fine as far as it goes. Presumably parental satisfaction would be measured by surveys. But how about a more direct measurement? Give parents vouchers or refundable tax credits that could be used at the school of their choice (not just the school assigned by their local district). That would be an even more accurate measurement of parental satisfaction.

Of course, the whole notion of federal law governing what has historically been a matter of the states and local governments is itself unfortunate. I fear that it will be used for mischief down the road.

Labels: Education, School choice

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In Defense of Wal-Mart.
Everyone seems to hate Wal-Mart, except their customers. And John Hood, who writes a defense of the retailer here.

Jesse Jackson, ever looking for a colorful phrase, has said: "It's Kool-Aid and cyanide." "The Kool-Aid is the cheap prices. The cyanide is the cheap wages. The cyanide is the cheap health benefits."

Hood's college, George Leef, has this to say:

Wal-Mart hurts no one. There is no “issue” here; no threat to life, liberty, or property. But just like other successful companies and individuals who made targets of themselves simply because of their success—Michael Milken, Martha Stewart, Microsoft—Wal-Mart is now a target for our busybodies, meddlers, and parasites. (permalink)

Online News Sources: Who's Trustworthy?
The Online Journalism Review (a project of the University of Southern California) cites four reasons why blogs are developing some credibility as news sources.

* Niche expertise.
* Transparency in motives.
* Transparency in process. (Bloggers often link to source material.)
* Forthrightness about mistakes.

Says one media professiona: "It is our turn to open the shades, to reveal our process and prejudice, to engage in the conversation, to join in the community -- to be transparent. Shouldn't we, of all people and professions, be the most transparent?" (permalink)

Regulations to Help ... Businesses.
Business owners are keen to bash regulations--except when the regulations help their business.

I'm reminded of this again as I noted this entry in a local golf guide: "No coolers allowed on the course."

Now, a business ought to be able to set its own rules for what people do on the premises. But when it comes to alcoholic beverages, the rule is backed up by state law, which forbids customers to bring their own brews to the course. The beneficiary, naturally, is the golf course owner, who can charge $2 for a single can of Bud Miller.

By the way, the Institute for Justice does a great job of fighting unnecessary regulation that harms both businesses and consumers. A classic example: some states have decreed that a family can buy a casket only at a funeral home. The result: a huge mark-up for a disposable item. Check out the IJ website for stories about their battle on behalf of a small company that wanted to sell caskets at a discounted price. The topic becomes of greater interest now that big box retailer Costco is now selling caskets in its discount stores.

Labels: Golf

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Who Needs a Real Estate Agent?
Douglas Gantenbein argues that real estate agents do too little and take too much in commissions.

While the Internet has had some downward pressure on agent fees, agents have one key tool of leverage: the multiple listing service (MLS). Gantenbein, a correspondent for the Economist magazine, says that the Department of Justice has expressed some interest in possible antitrust violations of the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

While Gantenbein prefers a FSBO (For Sale by Owner) world, real estate agents can have some value. As a buyer, I used an agent on my last real estate transaction. The property was a FSBO. Deep into the deal, I found myself unsatisfied with some parts of the transaction. Had the seller been using an agent with a reputation to protect before fellow agents, I'm sure (or would like to think) that the agent would have counseled the seller not to take some corners. As it was, the damage I suffered was more of an annoyance than anything else, so I let it slide.

But the episode illustrates one little fact about economics and sociology: the more likely people are to interact with each other in the future, the more honest they tend to be. Well, that's the theory. (permalink)

Quotas for Cops?
You may have long suspected that many police departments have a quota on the number of tickets they must hand out. The Substandard points to an article detailing the policy in one Virginia town. The chief reason why this is a bad idea: it breeds cynicism about law enforcement. (permalink)

Death of a Golf Course.
Much of public policy revolves around this simple fact: when two people make an agreement, a third party that doesn't like that arrangement tries to get some level of government to get involved in some way. I've seen that action of late, however.

Locally, the number of golf courses got out of hand; in terms of econ 101, supply began to exceed demand. At the same time, the growth in the number of new households has increased the demand for housing. The the supply of land is (to date, mildly) constrained by government policy (think of it as a weak form of an urban growth boundary), so its value keeps increasing. A course owner can sometimes make a lot more money selling off the business than trying to operate in a market of soft demand. The result is a recipe for golf course conversion into housing developments.

Naturally, people who own housing next a course strenuously object to changing an "open space." Regardless of whether their own house has "destroyed" open space, they now want to prevent someone else from doing the same. Recently, such a crowd convinced the city council to deny a developer's zoning application to develop a course. (The family that owns the course claims that it has been a perpetual money-loser.)

A few miles south, however, a second course is soon going to be developed. It's a shabby course without much to commend it except for the fact that it's been very easy for me to play it without a tee time.

This morning I went there, thinking I had one or two sessions left; the bulldozers have been expected to arrive at the end of the season.

I was off a few days, as it turns out. Though I was able to play through, work has already begun. The signage, yardage markers, cleaning equipment, etc., were auctioned off yesterday. I was invited to walk the course (free of charge!) while the surveying crews started marking where gas lines and roads would go. Since the flags were already gone, I had to rely on my memories of past rounds to know where to aim. Inconvenient? Yes. But what a bargain!

All in all, it was a fine round. Naturally, it was also sad to know that the long fairway of a par 5 was soon going to be another road in another treeless development of cookie-cutter mini-mansions. Sigh.

But you know what? I can live with it. There's no need for this third party to intervene between the old landowner and the new one, seeking the power of the law to protect my preferences. I have no right to control the use of the land. Though I'm disappointed, the loss to this and other golfers does not rise to the level of government intervention.

At least we'll have some memories.

Labels: Golf

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A Public Radio Monopoly?
Public radio is the pure alternative to commercial radio, and barely hanging on. Well, not exactly.

Minnesota Public Radio has paid a small, liberal arts college $10 million for its radio station.

And for this we need taxpayer subsidies? (permalink)

Secede to Succeed.
A dispute over school funding formulas has left many towns in Vermont unhappy, and one town threatening to leave the state.

Killington, Vermont, voted to leave Vermont for New Hampshire. The town has since encouraged other towns to do the same. Playing heavy into the calls for a move: dissatisfaction with school financing laws that send money from "property-rich" towns elsewhere. (See the Vermont-based Ethan Allen Institute for some information on "Act 60.")

In response to Killington's call, the New Hampshire-based Josiah Bartlett Institute says (PDF) come on in. The institute argues that "in most cases the mere threat of secession would create a new awareness of the level of discontent and lead to productive dialogue."

The threat would be taken more serious if mechanisms for secession were actually in place (currently it would require the approval of both states, as well as Congress) to facilitate such a transition. Barlett calls for states to ensure that a petition to secede "come[s] from an existing town and not just some neighborhood subset and receive a supermajority fraction of the vote."

While past American efforts at secession were spectacularly disastrous, the institute cites a recent case from Switzerland. As Barlett concludes, "An organized policy that allows towns the right of voluntary association will make government both more accountable and more responsive to its citizens."

Labels: Education

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In Defense, More or Less, of Mourning Dove Hunting.
For some reason, questions about hunting arouse unusually strong passions, especially from the anti-hunting side.

Thomas Bray, a Detroit News columnist, expresses many of my thoughts on Michigan's recent move to open up selected counties to a mourning dove season.

"Personally, I have no interest in hunting doves — or turkeys, deer or any other land-dwelling animal. I don’t own a gun. But it’s not an emotional thing. I like to fish, and it’s not clear to me why hunting a mourning dove — which is not classified as a songbird despite its lovely call — deserves more consideration than, say, a rainbow trout."

Of course, in centuries past, we would all have a keen interest in hunting and fishing: it would be necessary for survival. Wealth has given us the luxury of fretting about the morality of hunting and fishing.

Concludes Bray:
"[It] appears the movement to bar dove hunting has more to do with growing scorn among urban and suburban elites for anything to do with guns, hunters and the notion that humans are a legitimate part of the environment than with concern for doves." (permalink)

Government Can't Trust Government ID.
One problem facing former prisoners who re-enter society is finding a way to provide identification to employers and landlords. And some of that problem comes from the government that incarcerated them.

A story in the Booth Newspapers syndicate in Michigan starts out this way:

"First as a foster child, then as an inmate, Steven Harbin has been under the watch of a state agency for most of his 32 years.

So he says he was surprised and frustrated when he was released from prison June 10 -- after serving 13 years for breaking and entering and a subsequent prison escape -- and he couldn't get a driver's license or birth certificate.

His Catch 22: To get identification, he needed to prove his identity, and state agencies wouldn't accept his prison ID and Social Security card."

If a state that has controlled a man's life for 13 years can't vouch for him, why would anyone else? WIth all the money spent on "rehabilitation," it would seem that providing a solid ID would be within the core tasks that a state would do right. (permalink)

Who is Your Teacher Union Hanging Out With?
It's hard to imagine that the National Education Association (NEA) will ever say "Stop. Now there is enough money for schools."

So it's no surprise that the union collaborates with other groups as it seeks to win more taxpayer dollars for its members. But the NEA's choice of partners in a new coalition should give everyone outside the radical left a pause.

David Hogberg finds that the NEA is bringing some unusual groups to its National Mobilization for Great Public Schools.

They include MoveOn.org, the hyperactive group that has compared President Bush to Adolph Hitler. ACORN, another group, pioneered the claim that taxpayer support of individuals (welfare) is not only an entitlement, but a right. It has also sought to "force a radical restructuring of America's unjust capitalist economy." Campaign for America's Future, a third participant, has played together with (figurative) bomb-thrower and polemicist Michael Moore.

Obviously the NEA can't control the actions or attitudes of groups that agree with it. But it does have the choice of whether to accept their encouragement. Unfortunately, the union that is so influential in setting education policy has chosen to join forces with extremists. (permalink)

A CRASH Course in Light Rail.
Houston has had a 7.5-mile long light rail system for less than a year -- and it has racked up 50 train/car crashes in that time.

The light rail authority blames drivers, but has also changed some lighting along the route, as suggested by the the Texas Transportation Institute.

The safest route would involve grade separation--elevating the tracks.
The authority blames some of the crashes on suburban congressmen who fought against additional money; the authority built the system at grade level to save money. That, of course, brings up the question of how much safety would have been purchased for the additional money required to build an elevated system. I don't know the answer, and would welcome any pointers on readers who can find a place to calculate the cost-per-accident avoided.

Based on current trends, the route is expected to carry 1 percent of local traffic by the end of 2004.

Labels: Transportation

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NASCAR: The Latest Sport on the Taxpayer Dole.
Auto racing has grown to be the biggest sport in the country (in terms of attendance), largely without depending on taxpayers.

Unfortunately, that may be changing. From the home of racing, the Kinston (North Carolina) Free Press laments the development.

"The other day, Gov. Mike Easley signed a bill appropriating $4 million to pay for the design and planning of a testing complex in conjunction with the motor sports engineering program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Easley had originally sought $15 million for the test track."

The $4 million, however, will likely be the tip of the iceberg. The estimated cost of the testing complex is $50 million. It's likely that those involved in promoting this raid on taxpayer dollars will be coming back to state officials - or even local officials in the Charlotte metropolitan area - holding their hands out for more corporate welfare."

Notice that the handout can be cloaked in dollars sent to higher education--always a safe bet for funneling pork.

The politicization of life--in this case, entertainment--continues. (permalink)

Increased Minimum Wage: Good Intentions, Bad Results.
Yet another study, this time from the Employment Policies Institute, on the detrimental effects of increasing the minimum wage.

"[This] antipoverty policy should be judged by its effect on the group it is attempting to help—current minimum wage employees. Examining the distributional employment results reveals that minimum wage increases decrease employment opportunities for current employees—the very individuals these policies are attempting to help." (permalink)

Political Bloggers.
While the PolicyGuy blog is not about politics, I have written about the possible implications for politics of bloggers. It's in an article for the
Detroit News web log. (permalink)

Be Smart When Spending on Education.
Kansas, like most states, has been embroiled in a controversy over how much to spend on K-12 education, and where to spend that money.

Stepping back from the question of distributing the money, I offer several principles for education finance in today's Wichita Eagle. (permalink)

Graduation Rates Are Overstated.
Speaking of high school graduation, education scholar Jay Greene found a few years ago that:

• Completing high school is nearly essential to economic and civic success in life
  
• The track record of GED certificate holders is not as good as that of high school graduates
  
• School drop-out rates are systematically understated; in the latest year for which complete data was available (1998), the high school graduation rate was 71 percent. For black and latino students, it was even worse: 56 and 54 percent, respectively.

Given those numbers, NCLB, though flawed, was inevitable.

Labels: Education

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Could GED Push Inflate Record of Kentucky Schools?
With the No Child Left Behind act in place, the pressure is on for states to boost the academic achievement of public school students. This well-intentioned law may provide some unusual incentives that may lead to further regulation.

Currently, Kentucky residents who take the GED must get the permission of the district superintendent, or else be 17 or older and out of school for at least one year. (Kentucky law requires attendance through age 16).

The GED route is not encouraging. In 2002, 7,000 students dropped out of Kentucky schools. In 2003, only 54 percent of 16-18 year olds who took the GED test passed.

The 2004 session of the legislature created a "secondary GED" for those students still in school. As the Louisville Courier-Journal reports, however, "Critics said a school could use the new GED to dump low-performing students who otherwise would drag down its test scores."

There are two ways of promoting educational improvement. One, largely ignored, is to ramp up competition among schools through public school choice, charter schools, tax credits, vouchers, and loosening restrictions on home schooling. The No Child Left Behind Act makes a baby step in this direction in that certain students in the worst of schools may, after two years, be allowed to transfer to another school in the same public school district.

The other approach to improving education, the dominant approach to date, has been to spend more money on the same approaches, and tweak standards. As the controversy in Kentucky illustrates, one administrative reform often brings forth a need for another.

(The Bluegrass Institute has been a leading critique of the state's plan.)

Labels: Charter schools, Education, School choice

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The Right Incentives.
Education scholar Andrew J. Coulson examines the Detroit Public Schools, which rank among the worst-run in the nation. Since the 1996-97 school year, the number of staff has continued risen, even as enrollment has dropped. The schools now employ more 1,723 people to run a system that servers 35,000 fewer children.

If money guaranteed good schools, Detroit would be doing great. Even when adjusted for inflation, per-pupil spending has gone up 20 percent since 1996, and now tops $11,000 per year. Despite this great increase, however, achievement remains dismal.

The fiscal mismanagement at the top has finally hurt rank-and-file workers, too. Facing a deficit of $250 million, the schools are ready to lay off 3,200 staff.

WRONG STRUCTURE
One important lesson from Detroit is that schools have the wrong incentives. In private industry, a business that loses customers must trim its staff, lower costs, refocus its energies, and improve its service. If it does not increase its income and reduce its costs, the company is in a slow (or perhaps fast) ride to decay, perhaps going out of business entirely.

By contrast, public schools do not have to worry nearly as much. Few things will make management complacent than the belief that its income is guaranteed. Public school administrators, more than private business managers, have that guarantee. It comes from state and local taxes.

While people are legally free to move from a district, it’s not easy for anyone to do. The poor, of course, may be financially unable to move at all. Yet the income they give the school district, through their own taxes and the money paid on their behalf by state and federal taxpayers, is a guaranteed income for the district.

Guaranteed income, to say the least, is not helpful to promoting excellent service and management This is not to say that many teachers and administrators are genuinely concerned about students. But financial incentives are important, too.

If you doubt that, ask yourself under which condition do you think more people would be willing to work harder and smarter: when pay raises and job security depend on working smarter and harder, or when pay raises and job security are guaranteed? When both slackers and star workers get paid the same, or when the outstanding performers are rewarded?

It’s a credit to many hardy souls that schools work as well as they do.

Labels: Education

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Free to Be Fat.
Nick Gillespie takes a quick survey of government efforts to encourage thinness, and takes a dim view of it all.

The typical justification is to save on health care expenses from the public purse. Gillespie points the attention, correctly, to another problem--our system of third-party payment of health care expenses.

If being overweight contributes "significantly to our health care costs," the best way to reduce our dangerous dependency on imported stretch fabrics is to make individuals internalize those costs the same way they scarf down the Big Macs and (formerly) supersized fries. That means reducing the publicly funded elements of health care. An added benefit of that would be to deny politicians -- and your taxpaying neighbors -- any right to shape your personal lifestyle.

If people want to pay higher insurance costs, a suitable arrangement can be worked out by consumers and insurance companies. But with someone else (government, employers) paying the bill, individuals have little financial incentive to keep fit, and governments (and employers) have plenty of financial incentives to cajole or even regulate private behavior through seat belt laws, jawboning fast-food restaurants into downsizing their food portions, and so forth.

Labels: Health care

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Economic Growth Better Than You May Think.
Bad economic news sells newspapers and grabs attention. But the state of the economy is, to borrow a phrase from the campaign trail, more nuanced than headlines suggest.

Much has been made of the recent payroll survey by the Labor Department, which reported a lower-than-expected number of new jobs in July. As Brian Wesbury notes in today's Wall Street Journal, there are several reasons why we should not call the recovery dead.

First, the figures are from one month only: a snapshot, not a movie. Second, the numbers are only one of two ways of measuring employment. The household survey, another government report, showed 629,000 new jobs in July. If you compare the growth measured by the two surveys since late 2001, you find that the payroll survey's growth of 401,000 new jobs is eclipsed by 3.3 million new jobs in the household survey. In other words, we may be looking at the wrong numbers if we look only at one survey. The true job growth number is somewhere between those two numbers. (The Labor Department offers an explanation of the difference between the two surveys here.

Third, other economic measures suggest a robust economy. The average growth rate for the first six months of this year (3.8 percent) topped that of the Clinton years (3.7 percent), for example. Retail sales--people actually acting on their feelings about their own economic security--are up 4.8 percent on an annual basis. Finally, the Federal Reserve just raised interest rates. Why? They, too, believe that the economy is growing.

None of this is to minimize the difficulty of looking for work. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, the reported death of the economy has been greatly exaggerated.
[Cross-posted to the Detroit News weblog] (permalink)

Outsourcing Continues.
Stateline has a rundown on the latest in the bruhaha over whether state governments should enter the 21st century and employ foreign contractors in some instances.

At least 42 states have let contracts that included the use of call centers based in Mexico, India, and other countries.

As the Conference Board concluded, "Like it or not, outsourcing is not merely gaining momentum; it is already a fixture of modern global business practice in the private and public sectors alike."

So far, complaints about outsourcing have been much to do about little. Take the information technology (IT) sector's sales to state governments, estimated to be $50 billion a year. The known value of offshoring (outsourcing to firms in other countries) contracts so far is $75 million--a scant percentage that barely registers, except in the emotional sense.

Because of the emotional response, a number of proposals have been floated in the states, including the giving of preference to domestic firms in the bidding process, and requiring companies to disclose the location of their workers. Some have revoked contracts already in place, preferring to pay more for work done in-state. (permalink)

How Many Politicians Do You Need?
According to the Center of the American Experiment, one reason for Minnesota's high-tax status may be the large number of politicians it employs.

In its December 2003 report (PDF), the center's Task Force on Metropolitan Governance has this to say:

"One needs only to examine the multiple layers of governments that exist throughout the state and [Twin Cities] region to see who spends those vital tax dollars. Of states with 3 million citizens or higher [Minnesota has roughly 5 million], Minnesota ranks number one in elected officials per capita. Minnesota has:

87 counties
853 cities, 521 of which are below 1,000 in population
1,791 townships
343 independent school districts
91 soil and water conservation districts
150 special districts (approximately)

The average citizen generally does not care who provides a service such as snowplowing, wastewater treatement, or road maintenance. They do care, however, that the service is provided and that it is provided efficiently and effectively."

Quite sensibly, then, the report endorses competitive contracting for government services. But what about small governments? Isn't it somehow wrong to endorse, as the report does, consolidation of government units?

If it's imposed on high, then yes. But as the task force points out, many of the small towns "are kept alive only through state intergovernmental aid programs," which are extensive.

In other words the civic pride that small towns derive from having their own political identity comes at a price paid by residents of larger communities. (permalink)

A National Market for Health Insurance?
Your doctor may have been educated in another state, and his office equipment probably was as well. Yet when it comes to buying health insurance, state goverment rules the day. That would change under legislation currently in the U.S. House.

The Health Care Choice Act (HR 4662) would open up a national market for people who wish to buy individual health insurance. Its chance of success is limited in this election year. But it takes time to bring about important changes, and this may be just one step of many to bring about necessary reforms to health care financing.

Labels: Health care

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A New Entry to the Resource Links.
The Performance Institute is "a private, non-partisan think tank seeking to improve government performance through the principles of performance, competition, accountability, and transparency." (permalink)

Greedy lawmakers pose new tax on low-cost housing.
That's what George Bullard of the Detroit News characterizes a proposal to increase a state-levied tax on mobile homes.

As bullard notes, in a year or so we will start to hear these same officials talk about how to promote affordable housing. (permalink)

Reinventing Business, Reinventing Government.
Lately I have been reading The Price of Government, which outlines an approach to government reform. It is a how-to book rather than a collection of case studies, but still, it gives a few examples of how government management reforms can go awry.

In Minnesota, two state employees "were paid a couple of thousand dollars each but never showed up for work." Definitely not a good thing. But the solution wasn't great, either: instituting time sheets that had to be signed not only by an employee, but by three or even four levels of management. (You'd think one would suffice.)

As finance commissioner, Peter Hutchinson found that each month he had to sign up to 100 time sheets for various employees. "In virtually every case, he had no actual knowledge of the work hours he was vouching for."

While the time-sheet reporting system gave a false sense of accountability, it had real costs: "The system of filling out, signing, and processing time sheets cost Minnesota $13 million a year to administer."

Too bad it took 20 years for that conclusion to see the light of day. (permalink)

Color-Coded College Classes?
From the Denver Post: "University of Colorado officials said Tuesday they are opening a disputed class section originally reserved for minority and first-generation students after three students and a conservative think tank threatened legal action." (permalink)

A Blog Worth Noting
I don't often link to Milt's File, because most of the entries there are beyond the scope of this blog. But this combination of arts, culture, science, and politics (foreign and domeestic) is worth a look. (permalink)

Property Taxes for Public School Funding?
Chip Taylor points out one problem of using property taxes to fund schools:

"The main problem with the property tax is that it is mainly used to fund something that, unlike police or fire protection services, has no intrinsic connection to property values: elementary and secondary education. This not only screws up the property tax for things that it would actually be good for, but also creates a pernicious education system in which the quality of your kid's school depends on the neighborhood you can afford to live in."

Labels: Education

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When Public Transportation is Dirty, Poorly Managed.
Two items on public transportation this morning, both courtesy of the Buckeye Institute.

First, the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), which services Columbus and its suburbs, has eliminated 30 percent of bus time on the road since 2001. During the same time, its expenses have been 30 percent higher than its peers. With this dismal record, it's going to ask voters (again) for more money.

Imagine, oh, McDonalds saying "Yes, we've had some problems with our service and management. Here's what we're going to do for you. We will cut our hours, reduce the number of items on the menu, and increase the prices."

The second transportation item has to do with the affects of mass transit on air quality. Usually mass transit is sold as a means of reducing congestion (never mind that it is almost always not terribly effective), but there's always the air quality issue as a back-up plan. Except that doesn't work out very well, either.

"A study by Dallas' transit agency ... concluded a proposed new light-rail line would reduce regional carbon monoxide emissions by less than one one-hundredth of a percent.

The proposed light-rail line would, however, hurt regional air quality by increasing nitrogen oxide emissions by 42 tons, nearly one-tenth of a percent."

In other words, the light rail system would make a net polluter.

Meanwhile, synconizing traffic signals is a much more effective way of reducing pollution, at a lower cost.

Labels: Transportation

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How Many City Departments Does it Take to Remove a Dead Animal?
The Price of Government, by David Osborne and Peter Hutchinson, is an attempt to reshape management practices in government. Along the way, they tell some interesting tales of the way things were, or in many cases, still are.

For example, they discuss CitiStat, a data-collection and mining program used to evaluate the performance of government departments. Simply by gathering information into one place for top officials to review, it can be a useful tool by revealing duplication of effort. "CitiState ... revealed that four different agencies had responsibility for dead animals, depending on the type, location, and time of day. After discussion, city leaders consolidated the responsibility in the Department of Public Health." (permalink)

More on Poletown Case.
The Michigan-based Mackinac Center has published extensively on the question of eminent domain abuse. Today it offers a compilation of its past articles dealing with the subject, as well as a link to the Michigan Supreme Court decision that overturns the Poletown case. (permalink)

America: What a Country.
As comedian Yakov Smirnov would say "What a country." Austria issues a stamp in honor of its most famous emmigrant, the current governor of California.

You can see the new stamp here. (permalink)

A Win for Property Owners and the Constitution.
On Friday, the Michigan Supreme Court overturned its 1981 Poletown decision. So what does that mean? Plenty. It means that some sanity has been restored to legal doctrine and economic development practices.

Under the principle of eminent domain, government is able to seize private property (and give some compensation to the owner) if it is for the public good. Traditionally that has meant roads or schools, but lately that definition has been expanded to include destroying modest homes to make way for luxury condominums , draining a lake to make way for a Wal-Mart store, and shoving out a family-owned auto repair shop to make way for a hardware store. (In the latter case, eminent domain would involve replacing one retail establishment with ... another retail establishment.)

The most famous case in the country may have been Poletown, in which the City of Detroit and the Michigan Supreme Court seized 1,000 homes and 600 businesses to benefit one corporation--General Motors.

On Friday, the court reversed its 1981 decision, saying "We overrule Poletown in order to vindicate our constitution, protect the people’s property rights and preserve the legitimacy of the judicial branch as the expositor, not creator, of fundamental law."

Good for them, and good for all of us.

Alan Ackerman, who was the lead attorney in the case Wayne County v. Hathcock issued this press release, calling the unanimous decision “a significant victory for private property owners in Michigan and elsewhere.”

Expanding eminent domain's use is wrong on several levels. Of course, as the court pointed out, it violates property rights.

It also opens the way for crony capitalism: a company with strong connections in city hall can leverage government power to acquire that prime piece of real estate.

It disrupts communities--most obviously in the Poletown case--by vacating homes and family-owned businesses to make way for out-of-town or otherwise large corporations. (Government should not take extra steps to keep family-owned businesses in business; on the other hand, it should not take active measures to forcibly move them, which is sometimes fatal to a company's business prospects.)

It says that the public purse is more important than the right of the individual to be secure in his own home. In this way, it changes governnent's function from that of protecting the individual and establishing an environment for peaceful life and commerce into managing the economy and the public fisc. Everything must go for the sake of enhancing tax revenues. Foregone, then, are the peaceful means of restructuring, reinventing, and refocusing government on its core functions.

Finally, eminent domain abuse of the kind curtailed by the Michigan Supreme Court is based on a faulty economic model. In this model, government planners can make better decisions about what is better for the economy than the private sector. Governmnent planners, in this thinking, can see enough of the big picture to know that business X is better for the economy than business Y. This what economicst Friedrich Hayek called the "fatal conceit," and its track record is, to put it charitably, mixed. Even the Poletown development didn't work out as planned.

(For further treatment, see my essay for the Detroit News weblog.) (permalink)