Thoughts on Medicaid, Right to Try, and Paycheck Protection As Legislative Session Wraps Up

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

Government IconExpect things to get a little wild before the legislature finishes its work at 6 p.m. Friday. Here are some of the issues I’ll be paying close attention to.

First, Medicaid expansion. To reiterate, Missouri should not expand this expensive, broken health care program. “Medicaid Transformation” is not the same thing as “Medicaid reform.” Transformation is just expansion rebranded.

Second, Right to Try. The bill would allow terminally ill patients greater flexibility to seek experimental medications, making this bill the latest in a string of proposed reforms — including last year’s Volunteer Health Services Act and this year’s hemp oil bill — emphasizing greater access in care and treatment. I testified in favor of the law in both the House and Senate, and while several states are considering the law this year, Missouri could end up being the first in the nation to pass it.

Third, paycheck protection. Paycheck protection would allow public employees in unions to, by default, keep more of their money rather than have it automatically siphoned off for a union’s political activities. It’s a common sense approach to a thorny free speech problem, which I’ve testified about before. If it goes to voters, you’ll hear much more about this topic from me in the weeks ahead, but the Senate will have to vote on it first.

There are other issues which are also lingering in the legislature, including tax credit reform and voter ID. I support both. TIF reform and the transportation tax are also big issues, and I would direct you to David Stokes’ and Joe Miller’s excellent work on those topics respectively. The school transfer issue is still very much alive, and of course there’s Tesla versus the car dealers, which you can read more about here and here.

It’s been a long session, but it’s not over yet. Stay tuned to Show-Me Daily as the week goes on for updates on these issues.

Parents Agree: More Is Better

Posted on by James V. Shuls

As first appearing in the Columbia Daily Tribune:

We have all seen the commercials: A man is sitting at a table with a group of children and asks, “Which is better, more or less?” The children quickly, and comically, explain why more is better. The ad ends with a familiar refrain: It’s not complicated.

Recently, the Show-Me Institute partnered with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice to ask a similar question among Missouri voters. Which is better: more educational opportunities or fewer? The responses in that survey reflected those of the children in the commercial — more is better.

Across the board, the majority of voters supported expanding educational options for students. Missouri lawmakers should keep this in mind as they work to “fix” the interdistrict transfer law.

Undeniably, there are problems with the current law that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, much of the fix will result in fewer, not more, educational opportunities for students in unaccredited districts. That is why a bipartisan compromise was inserted into the bill — a local private option, which would allow students in failing schools to attend a nearby, nonreligious private school.

Some argue the local private option does not belong in the transfer fix discussion. Sadly, these individuals are trying to make the transfer program more palatable for public school districts rather than increase opportunities for students.

The private option does exactly that. It’s doing so in 24 states and Washington, D.C., with Kansas being the most recent state to adopt school choice.

Missourians recognize having more educational opportunities is better than having fewer such opportunities. In fact, most Missourians would use school choice if they had it.

When participants in our survey were asked what type of school they would select to obtain the best education for their child, 39 percent indicated private schools would be their first choice, 11 percent said they would choose a charter school and 10 percent said they would home-school their children. Less than one-third of respondents said they would send their children to a regular public school.

Despite the strong desire for educational options and the high regard for private schools, nearly 90 percent of all Missouri students attend regular public schools. This mismatch between parents’ school preferences and the educational reality in Missouri has occurred because the Show-Me State lacks school choice programs. Without these options, many parents do not have the ability to send their children to the school of their choice.

Not surprisingly, a majority of the individuals in our poll said they would support expanding school choice. In fact, inter-district choice, charter schools and private school choice programs received similar levels of support — all above 60 percent. This includes strong support for school choice among rural voters.

Support tended to be highest among parents and low-income families — the individuals who stand to gain the most from the creation of school choice programs. They see the value in giving parents access to their children’s funding to choose the schools, public or private, that work best for them.

And why shouldn’t they support that policy? It’s not complicated.

James V. Shuls is the director of education policy at the Show-Me Institute. Robert Enlow is the president and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. The full poll results are available at edchoice.org/MissouriSurvey.

 

 

Missouri’s Tax Reform Journey Has Only Just Begun

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

Taxes IconFor Missouri’s tax reformers, this was one big week. Sure, the legislature passed the state’s first individual income tax reduction in nearly a century. But Tuesday’s override vote also signaled that the sands in the Missouri capitol are finally shifting toward sound, market-oriented, and growth-promoting tax policies, and away from Jefferson City’s business-as-usual tax policies.

As an organization that has helped lead tax reform efforts in Missouri for many years, the Show-Me Institute is pleased to see the legislature take this baby step of reform. Make no mistake — this is a very modest tax cut, and smaller than we preferred. But to be clear, this tax cut serves as a mile-marker on the path of greater reforms.

Thanks to the hard work of countless supporters of the free market, that pathway of reform is now opening wide. Policymakers are finally recognizing that the words “free market” actually mean something . . . and that free markets actually matter.

When we at the Show-Me Institute say that we believe in free markets, what we’re really saying is that we believe in people. We believe in people to invest in themselves and their families and to make this state a better place to live. We believe in that bottom-up solution which puts its faith in our people, not a top-down plan that puts its faith in the government. We believe in you.

And we believe this week’s tax cut is just the first step on the road to enduring, people-empowering tax reform in this great state. We look forward to the future, and we hope you’ll join us on our journey to make our state even better.

Streetcar Supporters’ Tortured Logic On Display In North Kansas City Extension Option

Posted on by Joseph Miller

It seems the downtown streetcar line and the proposed 7.8-mile extension plan have not slacked some Kansas City residents’ thirst for more rail. As the Kansas City Star reported today, the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) is still pushing for a streetcar extension to North Kansas City. According to the most recent report, the proposed line would not get its own bridge because it is too expensive. Instead, the streetcar would run across the congested Heart of America Bridge before heading north to 18th Ave. As we wrote when the plan was first proposed last year:

All streetcar lines are expensive and redundant, but the proposed northern extension is especially wasteful. Opponents and friends of the streetcar alike should be able to agree that this is not the best use of city resources.

Well, it seems like we can agree, with some rail supporters arguing against this extension plan. The price tag is an obvious point of criticism, but some streetcar supporters undercut their previous argument for streetcars by claiming that North Kansas City does not have the economic density to warrant a rail line. As Kansas City Councilman Russ Johnson put it, “it’s hard to have rail where there isn’t economic density.”

But wait a second. Haven’t we all been told that streetcars create economic density? Even Johnson has “insisted that the streetcar will help economic development near the rail lines and could help build urban population density.” He is not alone. Supporters of the streetcars have claimed that development follows the rail and that the un-built line in Kansas City has already driven development. If that is truly the case, a streetcar line makes more sense in North Kansas City than elsewhere, because its economic density could use a boost.

Johnson’s statements betray the truth about streetcars: they do not necessarily drive development, but they benefit greatly from existing development. The massive expense of streetcars usually requires densely developed areas that can act as a supportive tax base. Downtown Kansas City has businesses and property owners who can be taxed to pay for the streetcar, North Kansas City does not. Sales and property taxes, like those proposed for the downtown streetcar, would not be sufficient to support a streetcar extension to North Kansas City.

Imagine: Kansas City Schools Attracting Residents

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

We have heard it for years: Kansas City schools are so bad that it is driving people from the city in droves. The district enrollment has dwindled from 75,000 a few decades ago to approximately 14,000 today. And this isn’t just the much-maligned “white flight;” people of all races continue to flee the city.

But there is one glimmer of hope. At a recent morning talk at the Central Library, Dean Johnson, of the Crossroads Academy, a publicly funded but independently operated charter school, offered this:

Two weeks ago, we conducted our lottery for next school year. For kindergarten alone, we had 95 applications for only 47 open positions. Among the applicants is a family seeking to relocate from Kansas City, Kan., for the primary purpose of sending their children to Crossroads academy. Now this is not something we often hear — people moving to Kansas City because of the schools. But here’s the simple truth: families will go wherever they find the best teachers.

Johnson is correct, but he downplays the important role of administration. There are excellent teachers in the Kansas City School District, but the administration often is so bad that teachers are unable to teach. As local public education reform advocate Pam Kingsley said, “You could replace every teacher in the Kansas City district with the best teachers in the world, and after a year, they’d all have left because the schools are run so poorly.”

One family moving to Kansas City is anecdotal, but it is good news in what seems to be decades of bad. If Kansas City is serious about improving its education system, it needs to embrace school choice. After all, charter schools, which are public schools that are independently governed rather than district-run, not only out-perform public district schools, but they do so with less resources. It’s no wonder that more than 40 percent of the children in Kansas City’s public schools are already in charters. The program needs to be supported and expanded.

If charter schools can offer better education for less — and in the meantime actually attract people to the city — then everyone should encourage their existence and success.

Post Dispatch’s Criticism Of Sen. Chappelle-Nadal Misses the Mark

Posted on by James V. Shuls

Misses the mark

Patrick Gibbons, public affairs manager for Step Up for Students – Florida’s only tax credit scholarship organization – has a great critique of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s tirade against Missouri Sen. Maria Cappelle-Nadal (D-Dist. 14).

He wrote:

The newspaper editors declared Sen. Chappelle-Nadal to be “clueless on the value of public schools.” They expounded on that value by discussing the ways public schools benefit the general public, including increasing home values, greater economic development, higher incomes and more. Naturally, an educated population improves the greater public good.

But those public benefits don’t magically disappear if more kids are educated at private schools using publicly funded vouchers (or even privately funded tax-credit scholarships). The benefit ensues WHEN students are educated, NOT because of WHERE they are educated.

If privately funded vouchers improve educational options for children (and the vast majority of research says they do), then society is better for it. Society is worse off if we eliminate options for students struggling in schools simply because newspaper editors and politicians are concerned about the geography of where the education occurs.

Gibbons is absolutely correct. The goal of public education is advanced when students receive a quality education, not when public schools educate more students. This goal can be advanced by providing students with opportunities to attend quality schools, regardless of who operates the school.

Joy Pullman, of the Heartland Institute, joins Gibbons in criticizing the editorial board. To read her piece, click here.

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