Page 401 – Show-Me Institute

Homeschoolers Want to Play Too

Posted on March 5, 2015May 5, 2026 by Brittany Wagner

Upon moving into the Lindbergh School District, I became a reader of the Concord Call. The community-based articles draw the neighborhood’s attention to local school district happenings—football games, board meetings, plays—where adults without school-age children are welcome.

It’s common for school districts to engage with and give back to taxpaying community members. Homeschool parents are taxpaying community members too, but the Missouri State High School Athletic Association (MSHSAA) excludes their children from participating in after-school activities. The MSHSAA requires students to attend a public school for “not less than 80 percent of an allowable course load.”

Legislation was introduced last month that would give homeschoolers an opportunity to participate in sports and after-school clubs.

Twelve-year-old Isaiah Craft testified in favor of the proposed legislation. Missourinet reported:

“I came today to testify because I like football, but I don’t do the best in a classroom because I have Tourette’s and OCD. So, I just find it easier and I enjoy it more at home.”

Isaiah’s father touched on how the current law limits scholarship opportunities for homeschooled athletes:

“. . . what is troubling is the way it is now, it’s just the wall is there, there’s no option, and it’s just kind of a dead end.”

Opposition to the legislation suggests that homeschool participation would take away from academic incentives set for student-athletes. The fear of sitting out is often enough to motivate a student to complete an assignment or perform well on an assessment. The argument that homeschoolers have lower educational standards, which would be unfair to public school athletes, is unfounded. In fact, a lack of high academic standards in traditional schools is one of the top reasons parents choose to homeschool their children.

Homeschool parents make the same investment in public education as public school parents. If schools use taxpayer dollars to fund non-educational activities, such as football, then homeschoolers should have access to these programs. Children like Isaiah should have the chance to play too.

Streetcars Have Lost the Left

Posted on March 4, 2015May 5, 2026 by Patrick Tuohey

President Lyndon Johnson famously said of Missouri-born news anchor Walter Cronkite, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost America.” Johnson was speaking about support for the war in Vietnam, but that quote comes to mind when thinking about recent pieces on streetcars.

On January 8, the Huffington Post published a piece titled “A Streetcar Named Deception,” by Lawrence Hanley, president of the Washington, D.C., transit workers union. Hanley echoes many of the concerns made in this blog and elsewhere:

Streetcars today are of little, if any, use to those who actually depend on public transit as their primary means of mobility. Unlike light rail, heavy rail, and bus rapid transit, streetcars don’t have dedicated lanes to keep them moving free of automobile traffic. And in many cases, they run slower than a standard bus. And unlike a bus, a streetcar can’t shift out of its lane to avoid an obstacle, causing more traffic.

Streetcars also divert taxpayer money away from mobility-focused transit that helps working people and into boutique transit loops meant for “choice riders.” Meanwhile, bus service that takes people where they really must go gets short shrift, with routes being cut and fares going up. Adding insult to injury, streetcars are usually marketed as “sleek,” “premium,” “clean” ways for the rising urban class to get around. Rather than investing in and improving transit for everybody, politicians and their corporate backers are intentionally developing parallel transit systems—one for the well-to-do and one for the rest of us.

A month later, the New York Times published a piece arguing that money spent on streetcars is largely wasted:

“Bus-based public transit in the United States suffers from an image problem.”

That fact, laid out in a 2009 report from the Federal Transit Administration, isn’t surprising, but it has led to a perverse outcome: Transit agencies are spending millions of dollars on new rail infrastructure that is no faster than existing bus service, simply because riders perceive a train as better than a bus.

Many who are serious about effective transit have abandoned streetcars as a viable option. Why do Kansas City leaders persist when no one, especially Kansas City voters, thinks this is a good idea?

Proposed Senate Bill Would End Obamacare Medicaid Expansion Nationwide

Posted on March 4, 2015May 5, 2026 by Patrick Ishmael

Last month, a trio of U.S. senators released their version of an Obamacare replacement bill, which they called the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment Act (Patient CARE Act). The legislation would initiate a host of changes to how health care is delivered in the United States . . . and that includes a wholesale rollback of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

According to the Center for Health and Economy,

The federal funding for the Medicaid expansion provided by the ACA is no longer available under the Patient CARE Act. Additionally, the current Medicaid funding mechanism will be replaced with capped, per-beneficiary allotments that are indexed to inflation. States will receive pass-through grants for certain high-risk populations and defined budgets for long-term and elderly care.

Translation? In many respects, Medicaid would return to its intended focus of assisting those in poverty—that is, those at and below the federal poverty level—rather than those above the poverty line. That’s extraordinarily important. Obamacare’s Medicaid program basically makes able-bodied, childless adults not in poverty a federally preferred class of beneficiaries, with the federal government paying a greater share of the cost for many adults above the poverty line (90/10 federal to state) than it does for all sorts of beneficiaries below it (roughly 60/40).

Are adults between 100 percent and 133 percent of the federal poverty level rich? No. Are they in poverty? Also no, by definition.

Keep in mind, too, that the Patient CARE Act is only one of many proposed overhauls of the country’s health care system. All of its provisions, as well as the provisions of competing reform legislation, need to be debated on their merits in the weeks and months ahead. (We have our own ideas for key reforms of our health care system, of course.)

Make no mistake: Taxpayers have every right to be skeptical of the federal commitment to fully fund its portion of the Medicaid expansion indefinitely as the government swims in trillions of dollars of fresh debt. As the unsustainable fiscal realities of the Medicaid program and this Obamacare alternative both demonstrate, taxpayer skepticism of the expansion’s future is fully warranted.

Schools and Libraries Should Get a Piece of the Action

Posted on March 4, 2015May 5, 2026 by Michael Rathbone

Localities engaged in a tax subsidy bender shouldn’t be surprised if they wake up with a nasty hangover in the form of increased property taxes. When cities decide to binge on Tax Increment Financing (TIF), the cities themselves may not feel the pain, but other taxing districts like schools and libraries are impacted. This has caught the attention of some in the legislature. While it appears that forcing localities to sober up is off the table, they are at least working on giving taxpayers an aspirin.

The pain relief comes in the form of Senate Bill 114 (SB 114), which aims to redirect 50 percent of incremented property tax revenues (i.e., the additional property taxes that would be generated by the increases in assessed value of new developments in a TIF district) back to the school and library districts. Currently, these other taxing districts do not receive additional property tax revenue from any increases in assessed value for redeveloped property in a TIF district. Since TIFs can last up to 23 years, the amount of property tax revenue schools and libraries can forgo is quite considerable.

This is especially troubling for school and library districts, since they both rely heavily on property tax revenue. That is why there has been a long history of these taxing districts opposing TIF projects. School district opposition to TIF projects stretches back at least into the 1990s. They understand that as operating costs grow over time (due to inflation, added population, and so forth), they will have to find additional revenue. Forgoing property tax revenue through TIFs means they will have to resort to tax increases on the people and businesses not located in the TIF district. If SB 114 is enacted, hopefully these rate increases can be forestalled or even avoided altogether.

No matter the context, I’m generally not a fan of overindulging. When local governments overindulge on TIFs, I am particularly appalled. Considering the fact that TIFs don’t work in stimulating net economic development, I’d rather localities avoid their use altogether. Barring that, at least some legislators are trying to mitigate some of TIF’s more damaging side effects.

Playing Favorites on the Board of Aldermen?

Posted on March 3, 2015May 5, 2026 by John Wright

When it comes to local politics, we see the same bad ideas circulated over and over. As Saint Louis native Yogi Berra famously said, “It’s like deja vu all over again.”

This month, the St. Louis City Board of Aldermen is considering legislation that would rig the construction contract bidding process in favor of union contractors. And it looks like a political move to scratch the back of an important constituency at the expense of the smaller minority contractors shut out by this type of legislation.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. In 2012, the St. Louis County Council enacted similar regulations. Just as that law was a shameful example of special-interest pandering in the county, this legislation appears to serve the same function for city politicians who rely on trade and construction unions to stay in power. According to a story in the St. Louis American, Alderman Joe Vaccaro, who introduced this bill, freely admitted that the labor unions came to him with this bill and asked him to introduce it.

Of course, the bill does not specifically say that it would limit bids and contracts to “union-only” contractors. That would be illegal. Instead, it mandates a requirement that will legally accomplish the same goal. The new ordinance requires bidders on contracts of $25,000 or more to offer apprentice-training programs that are generally found in union shops. For all practical purposes, the only way a contractor or company can offer this type of program—and be allowed to participate in city construction contract bids—is to become a union shop. It would be an extreme burden for the typical independent non-union company to participate in the apprentice program. Whatever that burden may be, the city has no business mandating it.

Minority contractors, who want nothing more than an equal playing field in which to compete, say that restricting non-union contractors from bidding on construction projects will prevent minority-owned contractors from winning contracts. The county bill ended up keeping African-American independent contractors out of county construction worksites. Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. And government favoritism that has a disproportionately negative impact on minority businesses and independent contractors is simply indefensible.

Moreover, if the city adopts this legislation and non-union shops no longer participate in the bid process, taxpayers will take a hit. Limiting the number of potential bidders can only have one effect: raising overall prices. Researchers at the Beacon Hill Institute found that Project-Labor Agreements (PLAs), another method of union-favored project bidding, raised costs to taxpayers by 27 percent over non-PLA projects (which included many non-union bidders). This new law for Saint Louis City likely would have a similar result.

Law should facilitate open access, such that access to public institutions is not contingent on personal relationships and political connections. Law should be structured to apply to everyone equally. By favoring unionized contractors over non-unionized contractors, this bill reeks of cronyism. This is one bad idea I hope will not come back again, but as Yogi said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

John Wright is a policy researcher at the Show-Me Institute.

Uber, Education, and Barriers to Entry

Posted on March 3, 2015May 5, 2026 by James V. Shuls

What do taxicab cartels and traditional education groups have in common? This is a question I contemplated on a car ride from my hotel to the Association for Education Finance and Policy’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., last week. Instead of taking the Metro, I decided to use Uber. Joe Miller has written a bunch on Show-Me Daily about Uber and Saint Louis’ and Kansas City’s taxicab commissions’ fight against the ridesharing service. On my short ride, I realized that many education groups are a lot like the taxicab cartels—they have attempted to place incredible barriers to entering the profession/industry.

My driver, Majid, was an English teacher in his home country. Majid moved to the United States for a better life and would like to begin teaching here. To do so, he has to obtain certification, which means he has to pass a licensure exam. Of course, to take the exam he has to pay for the exam. Majid recently took the necessary tests and passed the math exam but failed the language arts exam. He now has to pick up more Uber fares to pay for another test, which he may or may not pass.

Like the regulations that have blocked Uber from entering the market in many cities, licensure exams are a barrier to entry. Barriers to entry are not a problem if they perfectly block the people/problems that we don’t want in a profession. That is, if a barrier screened out every potentially bad teacher, it would be a good barrier. Unfortunately, licensure exams are very loosely related to teacher quality. This means many bad teachers pass the exam and become teachers, while individuals who may be great teachers fail the exam and do not enter the profession.

When we look at the success that Uber is having and how it is revolutionizing the industry, it is easy to see why we need to be wary of unnecessary regulations that have nothing to do with quality. Education would be wise to follow suit and remove unnecessary barriers to entry.

Nationwide Convention Business Declining

Posted on March 3, 2015May 5, 2026 by Patrick Tuohey

There is little doubt that once the coming elections are over Kansas City leaders will start pushing for a convention hotel. The mayor has talked about it, and Star editorial writer Yael Abouhalkah champions it. When the GOP decided not to have their 2016 convention in Kansas City, those involved in the bid sought to blame a lack of hotel capacity.

According to CityLab, a think tank attached to The Atlantic Monthly magazine,

Over the last 20 years, convention space in the United States has increased by 50 percent; since 2005, 44 new convention spaces have been planned or constructed in this country alone. That boom hasn’t come cheap. In the last ten years, spending on convention centers has doubled to $2.4 billion annually, much of it from public coffers.

“It’s a very, very, very competitive thing,” says Susan S. Gregg, managing editor of Association Conventions and Facilities magazine, one of a large number of trade publications devoted to the convention industry. “All these cities that are so competitive are constantly having to upgrade and expand and improve.”

So if Kansas City built a convention hotel it would just be the latest comer to an already crowded market. Worse off, the convention industry is shrinking. Again according to CityLab:

But there’s a problem with this building bonanza, and it’s a doozy: There aren’t really enough conventions to go around. The actual number of conventions hosted in the U.S. has fallen over the last decade. Attendance at the 200 largest conventions peaked at about 5 million in the mid-1990s and has fallen steadily since then.

Even Las Vegas, a leader in the industry, has yet to get back to its pre-recession peak. According to CalculatedRiskBlog, Vegas reports that

There were 39,668,221 visitors to Las Vegas in 2013, just below the record 39,727,022 visitors in 2012. The pre-recession high was 39,196,761 in 2007. Convention attendance was at 5,107,416 in 2013, still well below the record of 6,307,961 in 2006.

As the money spent on downtown Kansas City demonstrates, taxpayers need to be vigilant of big promises from developers and politicians. When it comes to convention hotels, the need is even greater.

King v. Burwell: A Quick Preview

Posted on March 2, 2015May 5, 2026 by Patrick Ishmael

Last month, constitutional law expert Josh Hawley visited with Show-Me Institute supporters to discuss a wide array of health care policy issues. While he was with us, he offered some great insights into this Wednesday’s King v. Burwell oral arguments. If you can set aside about 45 minutes, watch the video of the whole event; you’ll be glad you did.

If you’re short on time, however, the case deals with what happens when a state declines to set up an insurance exchange under Obamacare, forcing the federal government to do so instead. Here’s the big question in King: Does the Affordable Care Act (ACA) block federal subsidies from going to insurance plans purchased in government exchanges that were not, as the law says, “established by the State”? If the answer is yes, it could simultaneously take subsidies away from millions of insurance plans and protect millions of taxpayers from the law’s mandates. It’d be a body blow to the law.

Why would Congress condition subsidies on states building their own exchanges? The answer is reasonably straightforward: Congress didn’t want the burden of creating exchanges to be on the federal government—that is, Healthcare.gov—and thought offering the subsidy as a carrot would get states to do the heavy lifting. Congress never thought the federal government would be running the exchanges for basically two-thirds of the country, as it’s doing today. Healthcare.gov’s rollout disaster was part and parcel of this miscalculation by Congress.

Supporters of Obamacare now contend the “established by the State” language was a drafting error, but there is lots of evidence that runs against that claim. The state exchange “carrot” strategy had appeared in prior, contemporaneous bills that were combined to form the ACA—suggesting that at least some legislators were well aware of the system they were creating. In fact, in the years that followed, Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber famously repeated what the consequences of states not building their own exchanges would be:

With most states declining to create their own exchanges, the Internal Revenue Service then wrote rules that would extend the federal subsidies not only to exchanges “established by the State,” but also to federal exchanges. The problem is that since the federal subsidies are the basis for penalties that, thanks to the IRS, would suddenly apply to tens of millions of Americans in states that didn’t create exchanges, those subsidies could be an illegal tax. Thus, we have the King litigation.

After Wednesday’s oral arguments, we’ll likely see a decision handed down on the case sometime this summer. How will it turn out? We’ll keep you posted.