Let a Thousand Schools Bloom

Posted on by John Payne

The New York Times ran an excellent article on Friday critiquing the idea that all students should attend college. A college education can certainly lead to a better career and higher pay for those who prosper in that academic environment, but for millions of others, it is ultimately a very expensive distraction:

The idea that four years of higher education will translate into a better job, higher earnings and a happier life — a refrain sure to be repeated this month at graduation ceremonies across the country — has been pounded into the heads of schoolchildren, parents and educators. But there’s an underside to that conventional wisdom. Perhaps no more than half of those who began a four-year bachelor’s degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years, according to the latest projections from the Department of Education. (The figures don’t include transfer students, who aren’t tracked.)

For college students who ranked among the bottom quarter of their high school classes, the numbers are even more stark: 80 percent will probably never get a bachelor’s degree or even a two-year associate’s degree…

College degrees are simply not necessary for many jobs. Of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelor’s degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Among the top 10 growing job categories, two require college degrees: accounting (a bachelor’s) and postsecondary teachers (a doctorate). But this growth is expected to be dwarfed by the need for registered nurses, home health aides, customer service representatives and store clerks. None of those jobs require a bachelor’s degree.

Despite the steady drumbeat from politicians and educators over the last 50 years, college is not the one true way in education. Training in a skilled trade and on-the-job experience are just as valid educational paths as college, and can be just as lucrative — often, more so. Government policy, both at the federal level and in Missouri, encourages people to attend college instead of pursuing other routes. We could both save money and achieve better outcomes if the government were to cut back on spending for colleges and shift some of that funding to need-based scholarships for trade schools.

The near single-minded focus on college as the best educational path is just another example of government’s tendency to impose a monolithic solution for a host of varied and complicated problems. Such problems can best be solved by a greater role for the market, which offers numerous alternative strategies for achieving similar goals.

Even Justified SWAT Raids Can Be Deadly

Posted on by John Payne

Many readers have probably already read about the tragic death of Aiyana Jones, who was killed when a member of the Detroit SWAT team accidentally shot her while conducting a raid on her home. The police in this case were looking for a murder suspect whom they found in the apartment, which seems like an appropriate use of a SWAT team to me. There is good reason to think that a murderer might try to resist police with violent tactics, after all. Still, the case underlines the reason that SWAT teams should only be used when absolutely necessary. Accidents do happen and people can get killed, so unless there is good reason to think that the suspect will react with potentially lethal violence, we should avoid that risk.

The City of Saint Louis Should Implement Water Meters

Posted on by David Stokes

I pose this question to the residents of the city of Saint Louis: Did you know that when your neighbors fill up the outside children’s swimming pool, wash their fleet of cars, or water their lawn until the grass is greener than the gardens of Shangri-La, you are paying just as much for their water as they are? Unlike many other large cities, suburbs, small towns, and hamlets, the city of Saint Louis has never adopted water meters as part of its water distribution system. Other cities are already moving from meters read manually by workers to meters read electronically, but Saint Louis still bills for its water through a flat-rate system that encourages overuse and inefficiency.

Saint Louis may have an abundance of water, but that is no reason to facilitate its overuse. Pricing is the most accurate way to limit resource usage to necessary levels. If city leaders wish the residents of Saint Louis to think of themselves as the zealots at Masada — wallowing in water while the Roman legions below suffered in the desert — then, by all means, flat-rate billing would accomplish that goal. If, on the other hand, city leaders want to facilitate conservation, choice, and a basic sense of paying for what you use, they should implement the very simple solution of water meters.

Numerous studies document the decrease in water usage that follows a conversion to meters. Denver saw a 28-percent decline in water usage after it switched to meters in 1995. A 1994 comparison in New York City between apartment buildings with metered billing and those without saw 36 percent less water usage in buildings with meters. Finally, a 1984 study for the Department of Housing and Urban Development compared multiple water conservation methods. It observed that meters were the most effective, and generally resulted in a 20-percent decline in water use.

Not surprisingly, many of the usage differences cited above are greatest during the summer months. With flat-rate billing, the cost of sprinkling your yard is shared by everyone. The one homeowner on the block that sprinkles for five hours every day still pays the same flat, quarterly fee for water as everyone else. I love a nice lawn, but I fail to see why the owner of the lawn should not pay for the water that maintains it. Meters are a simple and effective way to realize that goal. Furthermore, technology has reduced the annual costs of monitoring meters, giving the city even less reason to maintain flat-rate billing.

Water in Saint Louis — or, more exactly, the infrastructure to treat it and transport it directly to your house — is inexpensive by any measure. Even though the switch to metering would entail new costs, the long-term savings for many customers from reduced usage and conservation would offset those costs. Poor families in Saint Louis would still be able to afford their water bills if the city were to switch to meters, and could even save money by choosing to limit water usage. The low price means that lawns would still be green and pools would still be full, but a switch to meters would mean that you are no longer required to pay for the wasteful habits of your neighbors, and they would not pay for yours.

David Stokes is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, a Missouri-based think tank.

Related Links

Privatization of the Saint Louis Water Utility (Case Study)

 

Taxes in Philly and My Talk With a City Official on the Earnings Tax

Posted on by David Stokes

Earlier this week, I went to an after-work charity event where I was engaged by a city official — who I won’t name — on the earnings tax debate. It was a pleasant 10-minute talk. One of the first things he asked me was whether I knew of any cities that had gotten rid of the earnings tax once it had been imposed. I said I didn’t, but I knew of cities that had lowered their taxes, like Philadelphia. He told me that although Philly had indeed lowered it, the city is raising it again to cover a budget deficit.

Apparently, though, Philadelphia is raising property taxes instead, and keeping intact the reduction in its (still very high) local income tax rate.

His real point, however, was deeper — and one with which I strongly disagree. He implied that if cities with an earnings tax are not getting rid of them, that is an indication that the tax is good or efficient. I only wish that governments acted rationally enough for that to be a plausible viewpoint. I could believe that cities keep such taxes in place out of efficiency considerations if I had even one ounce of faith in government, at any level, to get rid of a tax that was doing more harm than good, or whose original purpose had expired. You may recall that we just got rid of a telephone tax that had been instituted to fund the Spanish-American War.

I do remember that, by the mid-1990s, the federal government got rid of a luxury-item tax it had imposed in the early 1990s because it was clearly harming manufacturers of high-end goods. So, I guess there is one recent example. In the mid-’80s in Missouri, there were several examples of changes in corporate taxes, so that instead of being based on inventory or licensing rules, they became based on assessments and income taxes. (This is when the city instituted its half-percent payroll tax. I won’t say that the payroll tax is unconstitutional, but I will say that the state Constitution clearly states that every local tax has to be authorized by state law, and there is no state law authorizing a payroll tax. Draw your own conclusions.)

Those examples, however, were revenue-neutral changes that resulted in higher revenue collections over time, so I don’t think they count. Let me know whether you can think of any other examples where the government realized a tax was not working and got rid of it. In particular, let me know whether you can find one in the city of St. Louis. I will gladly revise my opinion here if I get good counter-examples.

The official then brought up the tried-and-true line that county residents who work in the city would be free-riding on city taxpayers if they didn’t have to pay an earnings tax. I have also heard Professor Jack Strauss from SLU say the same thing. Usually, a free-rider argument would carry a lot of weight with someone like me, but in this case it is absurd for two reasons. First, what the heck is the point of paying a city business license if it does not allow you to hire employees to come work on your property? City business license fees can be substantial. Companies also pay commercial property tax rates, which are higher than residential rates. The official responded to me about commercial property taxes by saying that the city had abated so many business taxes that it could not depend on property taxes. I find this a prime example of being in a hole and continuing to dig, but also a great argument in favor of land taxation, for which abatements don’t apply in Missouri.

The second problem with the county free-rider argument is that I am absolutely certain that not one city official would apply it to city residents who work in the county. Unless I hear city officials arguing to raise taxes on city residents who work outside the city (where they must be free-riding, if we are to believe the arguments of earnings tax supporters), I won’t give that view any credit. For the record, I don’t think city residents who work in the county are free-riding at all, for the reasons mentioned above.

Like I Said, It’s Pretty Common

Posted on by John Payne

Most people probably believe that the mistakes of the SWAT raid on Jonathan Whitworth’s home in Columbia are extraordinarily rare. That is, unfortunately, false. I’m sure most SWAT raids do find the person and evidence they are looking for (even if the amount of force they use is unnecessary for the task), but raids that turn up nothing or hit the wrong house are unacceptably common. Today’s example comes from Georgia:

An elderly Polk County woman is hospitalized in critical condition after suffering a heart attack when drug agents swarm[ed] the wrong house. Machelle Holl tells WSB her 76-year-old mother, Helen Pruett, who lives alone, was at home when nearly a dozen local and federal agents swarmed her house, thinking they were about to arrest suspected drug dealers.

“She was at home and a bang came on the back door and she went to the door and by the time she got to the back door, someone was banging on the front door and then they were banging on her kitchen window saying police, police,” said Holl.

Holl says her house was surrounded and she was scared to open the door. When the Polk County Police Chief finally convinced her she was safe, she let them in.

“They never served her with a warrant. At that point, she said the phones were ringing with the other men that were in the yard and they realized that it was the wrong address,” said Holl. […]

“My mother has had a heart attack. She has had congestive heart failure and she is in ICU at the moment. She is not good condition and her heart is working only 35 percent,” said Holl.

Holl admits that her mother has had three heart attacks but has been doing well for the past couple of years.

“She was traumatized. Even the doctor said this is what happens when something traumatic happens. He said it’s usually like a death in the family or something like that just absolutely scares them half to death, and that is what has happened,” said Holl.

SWAT raids are designed shock and confuse, which is why, when they occur, many people believe the police are actually criminals attacking them. This can lead to heart attacks or residents attempting to defend themselves from perceived criminals, setting off a deadly firefight. When SWAT raids are used for nonviolent situations, they almost always introduce danger into the situation rather than removing it.

Also, there is this tidbit:

Police say they have had her mother’s home under surveillance for two years.

Holl says if that’s true, how could police get the wrong address?

“We have just found out from a neighbor that they (police) went into some other elderly woman’s home who was on oxygen and took her oxygen off of her and scared her half to death,” said Holl.

If the police really have been watching the house for two years and still raided the wrong house (I have my doubts), it certainly makes the Columbia Police Department’s new rule of keeping houses that they plan to raid under constant surveillance seem woefully inadequate.

Story via Hit and Run.

Raw Milk Consumption: A Consensual Crime

Posted on by Christine Harbin

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently published an article that synthesizes the arguments for and against raw milk consumption.

It strikes me that the debate over the appropriateness of raw milk consumption is a natural application of the general principle in Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Society, by Peter McWilliams, which we recently read for the Show-Me Institute’s book club. His central idea is the following:

You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own person and property, as long as you don’t physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other.

It should not be the role of government to protect individuals from their own actions, such as consuming raw milk. Consumers of raw milk are rational, consenting adults. They can judge for themselves the costs and benefits associated with consuming milk that is unpasteurized. A person may harm himself by drinking raw milk (just as he may harm himself by drinking pasteurized milk), but he does not harm others by doing so.

Furthermore, it should not should not be the role of government to instruct individuals about which products are appropriate to consume and to produce, and which behaviors are appropriate to engage in, provided they do not hurt other individuals. Individuals who desire to buy raw milk should have the freedom to do so, and dairy farmers who want to produce and sell raw milk should similarly be free to do so.

As an unintended negative consequence, prohibiting the sale of raw milk will be ineffective at stopping its consumption; instead, it will drive such consumption underground and encourage real crimes. Raw milk bans will increase search and transaction costs for the consumer — they could join a raw milk club, travel to a state that permits it, or buy the product disguised with a misleading label.

Sarah Brodsky has written previously about the laws related to raw milk consumption. McWilliams would disagree that the consumption of raw milk should be illegal. From his book:

People often use the word legal too loosely. They fail to give sufficient thought as to what legal and illegal really mean. When we say a given activity should be illegal, what we’re saying is that if someone takes part in that activity, we should put that person in jail. When it comes to consensual crimes, however, when people say, “It should be illegal,” what they usually mean is, “That’s not right,” “That’s not a good idea,” or “That’s immoral.” When using the word illegal, it’s important to remember how forceful the force of law truly is. We are all entitled, of course, to our opinions about certain activities, but do we really want to lock up people who don’t go along with our opinions?

Parenthetically, from the article, I suspect that raw milk bans could be motivated by rent-seeking behavior. Producers of pasteurized milk could encourage banning raw milk as a means to create a barrier to entry to the market:

To some, new legislative efforts to relax raw milk laws could encourage more producers in the struggling dairy industry to get into the raw milk game[.]

Similarly, bans on the production and sale of raw milk discourage small farms from entering and operating in the market, and they favor larger firms that currently operate in the market and possess the resources to pasteurize their product.

Truth in Advertising

Posted on by Dave Roland

As many fans of the Show-Me Institute will already know, I have spent a lot of time during the past six months discussing the questionable constitutionality of Congress’ attempt to punish individual citizens who choose not to purchase government-approved health insurance policies. In fact, I’ll be discussing this issue tomorrow morning between 10:15 and 10:45 on Sarah Steelman‘s radio show on KWTO 560-AM in Springfield. You can also listen in online.

Early in this year’s legislative session, members of the General Assembly asked me to offer testimony on the Health Care Freedom Act, which was proposed as a constitutional amendment that would recognize the fundamental right of citizens of Missouri to decide for themselves how they will pay for their health care, and that no government could rightfully interfere with that decision. In my testimony, I pointed out that if courts decided that nothing in the U.S. Constitution prevented the government from mandating the purchase of government-approved insurance policies, a constitutional amendment of the sort contemplated in the Health Care Freedom Act could offer a legal “Hail Mary” — a last line of defense that might prevent further congressional intrusion into citizens’ lives.

Despite overwhelming support in both the House and Senate, the Missouri General Assembly did not agree to let citizens vote on this constitutional amendment. Instead, the legislature placed the original bill’s language into House Bill 1764, which would allow voters an August referendum on adopting a new statute. Many of the legislators and citizen groups who had worked to pass the original bill are now hailing the passage of HB 1764, implying that if the people vote to adopt this statute, it will have the same effect as the proposed constitutional amendment might have. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Missouri voters may well use this referendum as a political statement through which they can express their opinions about the federal health care reform law, but the text that might have been legally useful as a constitutional amendment will have zero legal effect as a statute.

The text that will be presented at the referendum states, in part: “No law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system.” A court called upon to evaluate whether this provision would be effective against any federal enforcement of the health insurance mandate will first point out that because the language makes no reference to any particular government, it must be assumed to apply only to law- or rule-making subdivisions of the state of Missouri. Not only is it virtually unheard of (and generally futile) for a state statute to attempt to bind the federal government or one of its agencies, the plain text of the bill says nothing to suggest that is its purpose. A court looking at this provision as a statute will almost certainly end its analysis there.

However, even if the court infers that the General Assembly intended to prevent the enforcement of certain federal laws, the statute will fail. In order for the Health Care Freedom Act to have any hope of being effective, it would have to give citizens the basis to argue that health care freedom is a fundamental right beyond any government’s rightful authority to transgress. If the citizen could make that argument, there would be a very slight chance that the U.S. Supreme Court might consider such a fundamental right sufficient to prevent the government from punishing those who chose not to abide by the individual insurance mandate. A statute, however, is not the mechanism by with citizens establish fundamental rights or liberties — they put those in their constitutions, where they are insulated from repeal or avoidance by future legislation. Thus, even if HB 1764 had purported to establish a fundamental right or liberty, courts would have been unlikely to take them seriously. It just so happens that HB 1764 does not even make such an effort, further diminishing any legal usefulness it otherwise might have had.

To be clear, I do not mean to suggest that proponents of the Health Care Freedom Act are intentionally misleading people as to the likely effect of HB 1764. But Missouri’s citizens deserve to know that the bill and the upcoming referendum it authorizes can only be considered a political statement. Even if the people adopt this statute at the August referendum, their rights and liberties will be no more secure than if the bill had been defeated.

A Better Idea for the Claycomo Ford Plant

Posted on by David Stokes

This blog has had favorable things to say about the governor’s hard choices and tough decisions when it comes to the Missouri budget, so a bit of mild criticism on another issue is probably fair — just to even things out, for the fun of it. Today’s Kansas City Star has video of the governor visiting the famous Claycomo Ford Plant. (The city really is named Claycomo, as in Clay County, Mo.) The governor calls for the legislature to pass a tax credit for companies that invest in plant equipment directly leading to Missouri jobs. He explains in the clip that this credit would be different than the other types of tax credits he has said need to be cut, as the Show-Me Institute has also argued. 

Be that as it may, I still think I have a better idea. If you want to help the Ford plant in Clay County, make it easier for officials there to lower the enormous commercial property tax surcharge that county businesses pay. Clay County levies the third-highest surcharge in Missouri, at $1.59 per $100. Compare this to the GM plant in St. Charles County, which pays only $0.53 per hundred. Making it easier for the Clay County legislature to lower that rate, and changing the surcharge so that it rolls back as assessments increase, would benefit all the businesses in Clay County — the Ford Plant in particular.

For more background on the commercial surcharge in Missouri, check out this article, this testimony, and this House Resolution, which has been introduced in an attempt to make these important changes.

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