Conservatives on Campus: A Vanishing Breed?

Posted on by Emily Stahly

If I were to ask you to estimate the ratio of liberal to conservative professors on college campuses across the country, what would you guess? A 50/50 split? Two liberal professors to every one conservative? Three?

Nationwide there are six liberal professors for every conservative professor.

This data point was emphasized in a recent Boston Magazine article in which Chris Sweeny records stories of students and professors afraid to express their conservative viewpoints because of the threat of backlash. While there is no single cause behind this fear, the political composition of colleges’ faculties may be a significant factor.

The 6-to-1 ratio comes from the work of Dr. Samuel Abrams, professor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Interestingly, this ratio was not uniform nationwide. Of all the factors he examined—religious affiliations, departmental differences, size of college, etc.—the region in which the college is located had the biggest impact.

The West Coast matched the national average of 6 to 1 and the Plains and Southeast had the most balanced ratio, at 3 to 1. Far surpassing other regions, however, was New England—where liberal professors outnumbered their conservative colleagues 28 to 1.

While it is not surprising that university faculty in New England are more liberal than their counterparts in the Plains region, such a large disparity is disturbing. Moreover, it should concern Missourians that the University of Missouri is currently facing some problems that we might expect to see in New England schools, given their apparent lack of intellectual diversity.

In November, Mike McShane wrote about Mizzou being tied for last place on Heterodox Academy’s ranking of the top 150 universities for their policies on free speech and acceptance of different viewpoints. Since then, Mizzou has “improved,” and is now second to last according to the updated rankings. The University of Oregon, scoring 0 out of 100, is in sole possession of last place. Mizzou scored an underwhelming 6.25 out of 100 points, tying them with Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, and Rutgers.

While it is unlikely the ratio between liberal and conservative professors will become more balanced any time soon, universities can implement policies to protect the viewpoints of students and faculty. The University of Chicago’s commitment to Freedom of Expression is one such policy Mizzou should adopt.

In their recent paper, Mike McShane and Michael Highsmith wrote:

Freedom of speech and debate is at risk and can be protected. It seems that not a week of the school year goes by without some story emerging about efforts by a student council, residence hall, professor, or school administrator to stifle the speech of students. If we do not impress upon our students the importance of free speech and defend it vigorously, we risk creating a citizenry that does not value one of the foundational values upon which our nation was built. Luckily, institutions like the University of Chicago offer a great blueprint for fostering debate and protecting speech. Mizzou would be wise to study that blueprint carefully.

Even in an environment where conservative students and faculty are in the minority, their rights and contributions can be respected.

A Critical Review of the SC STL Proposal

Posted on by Michael Highsmith

“Game-changing” projects that require taxpayer assistance have become the norm in Saint Louis, as public subsidies are granted to wealthy developers despite opposition from local residents. The trend was set to continue for construction of a Major League Soccer (MLS) stadium until Governor Elect Eric Greitens voiced his objections.

Right now, because of reckless spending by career politicians, we can't even afford the core functions of government, let alone spend millions on soccer stadiums.

The project’s ownership group, SC STL, has taken Greitens’s words seriously and delayed a request for $40 million in tax incentives from the state. In addition to this $40 million are plans for Saint Louis City to pay $80 million, but before any public funds are awarded we should ask what return the city will see on its investment. Are there benefits to owning a stadium? Here are some claims that SC STL made in its written proposal to the state:

Claim 1: Publicly financing an MLS stadium will help make Saint Louis a “first-class city” and will “complete one of the great corridors of sports, culture, and entertainment in the nation.”

What being a “first-class” city means is ambiguous, and Saint Louis taxpayers have heard this song before. The $3 billion spent on MetroLink (thus far) was supposed to make the city first-class. Today, MetroLink trains carry less than 1% of metro-area commuters and have failed to spur significant economic development. In the 1990s, the Edward Jones Dome was pitched as a way to grow the economy and revitalize downtown; it failed on both fronts. Exactly how another professional sports team will help Saint Louis climb the urban ranks, and how that ascension justifies a massive subsidy, is unclear.

Claim 2: SC STL has made “significant effort to minimize the public financing component of the project.”

It is, at best, unclear what efforts SC STL has made to minimize the need for public subsidies. SC STL originally estimated that the expansion fee for joining MLS would be $200 million, but MLS recently announced that the fee would be only $150 million. One might expect that the $50-million cost reduction would be passed along to the city and the state, but SC STL made clear it would still ask for the full $120 million. Can SC STL really claim they have made “significant effort to minimize public financing?”

 

Claim 3: The recent departure of the NFL Rams reduced tax revenues for the city, and an MLS team would help recover some of those lost revenues.

This is a little like a doctor prescribing more of the same “medicine” that made the patient sick in the first place. Pushing for a stadium deal to help make up for revenue shortfalls caused by a previous stadium deal lies at the border of questionable and crazy. Of course, the proposed MLS stadium deal isn’t 100 percent identical to the deal city officials offered the Rams, but we won’t fix the outcomes of poor policy with more of the same bad policy.

Claim 4: Taxpayer subsidization is justified because a stadium will spur economic growth.

The Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC) conducted a study concluding that an MLS stadium would generate $24.5M in net state general revenue over 33 years, but this study deserves some scrutiny. Economists overwhelmingly agree that benefits from stadiums are overstated due to studies failing to take into account that spending is taken away from other businesses. Moreover, these studies rely on a controversial economic concept known as a “multiplier effect,” which is a measure of the overall impact of money in a local economy. In short, studies assume a multiplier effect far higher than most economists believe exists, and so, project rosy but unrealistic, outcomes. This is why, despite studies claiming stadiums will be boons for the economy, history and economics show promised economic benefits don’t pan out as projected.

The current proposal for publicly subsidizing an MLS stadium in Saint Louis is heavy on optimism, but that optimism isn’t justified by research or by past experience. Taxpayers should be wary of doubling down on a bet in hopes of paying off the debt we’re already stuck with.

Kansas City’s Intermodal Strength

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

The announcement a few months ago that Amazon would be opening a fulfillment center in Kansas City, Kansas was great news. But it wasn’t just an accident that Amazon chose the Heartland for its center. As Wendell Cox pointed out in his recent paper for the Show Me Institute, the Kansas City metropolitan area is well positioned for just this type of industry. Hopefully, regional leaders keep the area’s relative strengths in mind when setting policy. Cox writes,

Kansas City’s pivotal position in the national highway system and its strong rail hub enable it to be one of the nation’s leading intermodal markets. Intermodal freight transport refers to the transfer of shipping containers from one mode to another (such as truck to rail, or air to truck).

In addition, Cox writes that land costs in Kansas City are low because the city has avoided costly land use regulation policies. Affordable real estate at a desirable location seem to have appealed to Amazon. But the essay—and the reality of the new Amazon center—suggest that there are other, similar opportunities to be had. Kansas City leaders need to stop importing policies from far off cities and design economic policies that take advantage of Kansas City’s great strengths.

Employment and Payrolls in Missouri Lag Nation

Posted on by Rik W. Hafer

Since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, the Missouri economy has recovered slowly relative to the nation as a whole. This is nowhere more in evidence than in the employment and payroll numbers. Using data released in December by the Census Bureau we can get a picture of how successful Missouri has been in creating jobs and raising payrolls relative to the national average. The data cover the period from 2010 to 2014, the most recent year available. Instead of looking at just the aggregated numbers, the table below breaks down these figures by size of firm.

Employment in small firms—those with fewer than 20 employees—declined in Missouri following the recession. The U.S. overall eked out a only small increase in this category. For all other firm sizes, employment in Missouri establishments increased at a pace slower than the national average.

Payrolls in Missouri generally rose at a significantly slower rate than in the nation overall. This holds true across all sizes of firms. Only for large firms—those with more than 500 employees—was the increase in payrolls similar in Missouri and the nation.

Percentage Changes in Employment and Payroll, 2010–2014
Firm Size by Employment Employment Payroll
  Missouri United States Missouri United States
<20 –2.48 0.55 5.49 10.45
20–99 4.96 8.45 11.89 16.60
100–499 2.01 7.67 14.53 20.73
500+ 8.17 10.89 22.70 23.51

 

Kansas City’s Remarkable Transportation System

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

Wendell Cox recently published a paper for the Show-Me Institute on Kansas City’s competitive advantages. One of the things that sets Kansas City apart from many of its peer cities is its amazing transportation system. Cox writes:

The metropolitan area is served by a comprehensive freeway network and a good arterial street and boulevard network. Only two of the 50 largest U.S. urban areas have lower traffic volumes per freeway lane mile than Kansas City. This provides Kansas City with a considerable advantage in both personal and freight mobility.

Cox writes that according to Tom Toms Traffic Congestion Index, “Kansas City ranks as the least congested metropolitan area, overall, in the world among the 146 it ranks.” This is not because there are fewer people on the roads in Kansas City or because a larger percentage of people use transit. “Driving alone is by far the most important means of travel to work. In 2014, 82.6 percent of Kansas City commuters reached work driving alone,” writes Cox. Driving to work alone is not the sole dominion of wealthy workers, however:

Automobile usage is so pervasive that it is little different among low-income employees than among the overall work force. In Kansas City, only 3.0 percent of low income employees commute to work by transit. This is more than the share of the overall workers using transit, but still very small. Cars are much more important to low-income workers. This small difference is less than might be expected in light of the perception that low-income residents depend substantially on transit for their mobility. In 2013, 76 percent of low-income Kansas City workers drove alone to work, nearly as high as the approximately 83 percent of all workers who drove to work.

The next time you hear someone wax rhapsodically about the need for an expanded streetcar system in Kansas City so we can be like Denver and Portland—or because they think it will help poor people better get to work—direct them to Cox’s paper. Kansas City is not like those places—certainly not when it comes to density or traffic congestion.

Policy Breakfast: Stuck in the Middle with Mizzou

Posted on by Michael Q. McShane

The last year and a half has been a tumultuous time for Mizzou and the University of Missouri system as a whole. The appointment of a new president and the desire for a new direction for the university system give us an opportunity to step back and look at how well Mizzou is performing—how it stacks up to schools across the state, region, and nation—and to offer ideas to help make it stronger. This presentation will begin with a discussion of data on the university’s performance and will also offer reform ideas from other universities.

Development Can Happen without Subsidies

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

It is a sign of how bad the subsidy culture is getting when Kansas City Star reporter Diane Stafford has to mention that a proposed Country Club Plaza apartment building plan, “calls for no public incentives.” How did we get to the point where the mere fact that private developers are developing privately is noteworthy?

Back when City leaders referred to themselves as “geniuses,” City Hall was handing out subsidies to everyone. H&R Block kicked off the feeding frenzy with their downtown office building, followed by the financially disastrous Power & Light District deal that has taxpayers footing the bond payments. In recent years taxpayers have chipped in for wealthy corporate headquarters for Burns & McDonnell and Cerner, and subsidized luxury high-rise apartment buildings. Even The Star itself has received a tax abatement. Once taxpayers and parents raised an objection to a subsidy for architectural firm BNIM to build in a hip part of town, the Council considered some reforms. Mayor Sly James would have none of it and complained that “we may as well put up a sign that says Kansas City is once again closed for business.”

Obviously, James is wrong. As Kansas City contemplated subsidizing a Hyatt hotel downtown, Marriott was building two on their own dime a few blocks away. The owners of Ward Parkway Mall are building a restaurant plaza without any subsidies. And now we learn of this proposed 13-story, 257-unit apartment building just west of Country Club Plaza. This is great news, not just because someone wants to invest in Kansas City, but because they are willing to invest their own money rather than seek taxpayer subsidies.

As Show-Me Institute writers have pointed out for years, not only do subsidies starve cities, counties, schools, and libraries of the revenue they need to provide basic services, subsidies also pervert developers’ incentive structure. And all this for projects that research shows likely would have been built anyway.

Real private investment—without taxpayer subsidies—is a true sign of economic health. City leaders need to put the brakes on handing out subsidies and let more private investment come.

Fuzzy Thinking on the “Price” of Doing Business

Posted on by Andrew B. Wilson

As someone who ran his own business for many years, I am aware of the difference between cost and price, even if it is something that eludes many political leaders and more than a few businesspeople with their noses in the public trough.

Cost is the expense that a business incurs in making a product or performing a service. Price is the amount of money that a customer pays for the product or service. The difference between the two is the business’s profit or loss.

In an article that appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Dec. 24, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon spoke in favor of awarding $120 million in subsidies to a group of wealthy businessmen who want to build a brand-new stadium and bring a Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise to downtown Saint Louis.

“It’s the price of doing business,” Nixon said, adding: “Folks may want to anguish a little bit” over the ladling out of such a large sum of public money to underwrite a private venture, but not to worry – because, “quite frankly,” this is a necessary and “cost-effective” way of putting a new business (the MLS franchise) on its feet.

The suggestion here is that the city of Saint Louis and the state of Missouri must be willing to part with $120 million – that being the price demanded by the group of businessmen (with the enthusiastic support of MLS Commissioner Don Garber) – in order to have a good chance of landing the soccer franchise.

But wait a minute.

If this was such a great business opportunity, why were these self-described businessmen and the MLS panhandling for public support? Why didn’t they think they could cover their costs – including the cost of building the stadium – through the sale of tickets, merchandise, and TV rights?

Running a business isn’t supposed to be easy. If misguided or self-interested political figures try to make it so (through public subsidies to private ventures), they inevitably divert scarce resources to less productive uses.

They make it possible for those without a solid business plan, and without any real appetite for innovation or risk, to enjoy an undeserved moment in the sun – at taxpayer expense.

At the same time, they encourage others to eschew enterprise for the seemingly easy but dead-end path of cronyism.

In short, they only poison the well that produces prosperity under the free market system.

What our outgoing governor called “the price of doing business” has nothing to do with business in any serious sense. Incoming Gov. Eric Greitens called it by its proper name.

It is “corporate welfare” for the idle rich.

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