Mozart as a Public Good

Posted on by John Payne

Saint Louis’ only orchestral music station might be changing formats, and it has two area congressmen pretty angry:

U.S. Reps. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, and Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, are asking the Federal Communications Commission to weigh the potential negative consequences of selling KFUO (99.1 FM) to a company that broadcasts “Christian contemporary” pop music.

The station is currently owned by the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church. Facing a cash crunch, it agreed to sell the station last year for $18 million to Gateway Creative Broadcasting.

The pending sale — which still needs federal approval — has raised a cacophony of dissent from the St. Louis arts community, bemoaning the loss of the only station in the region where listeners can hear full time from Brahms, Bach and others.

As someone who likes orchestral music and listens to KFUO fairly often (it is number five on my car presets) but absolutely hates Christian contemporary, I sincerely hope the station keeps its current format.

That being said, what do Shimkus and Clay expect the Missouri Synod to do if this sale is blocked? The church probably wants to sell the station because it is a drain on the church’s resources, so it might just stop broadcasting even without a sale to save the operating expenses. Barring that, the Missouri Synod will have to cut back on other goods or services that it sees as more vital than the radio station. Such a cutback could include anything from laying off marginal employees to reducing charitable work.

If people are interested in saving KFUO’s current format of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, they should organize a fundraiser or a pledge drive for the station.  KDHX 88.1 FM in Saint Louis (number four in my presets) provides a format for numerous different genres of music that are never heard on pop radio, and all without almost any advertising because the DJs and workers are almost all volunteers and listeners give them money for the good work they do. If people truly want a station to play concert music in Saint Louis, they will support it monetarily. If not, then as much as I or anyone else may not like it, the scarce resources used to broadcast it currently should be used for some other kind of programming that people like more.

Frankly, I’m Not Seeing the Downside Here

Posted on by John Payne

From KMOX:

The Missouri House Budget Committee was told two Missouri prisons could close down if the House cuts funds by five percent.

The warning was delivered to the budget officials by Public Safety & Corrections Chairman Dwight Scharnhorst from St. Louis County.

A top official told Scharnhorst how losing nearly 20 million dollars would effect on the Department of Corrections.

“His statement at the time was, ‘I will definitely have to close one institution, possibly two.’ It would be minimum security, he designated that right away.” said Scharnhorst.

Adult Prison Director Tom Clements says non-violent prisoners and those eligible for parole could be released before the end of their sentences.

So, what’s the problem? The state would save money, and people who mostly should not have been in prison in the first place would be free. I suppose those who work in the closed prison(s) would be hurt in the short term, but this would be an improvement for the economy as a whole because the money formerly spent on incarceration would be available for more productive uses. The same applies to the former prisoners who just might be able to return to (or start) useful employment. I simply fail to see the danger in this “warning.”

Link via John Combest.

Government Agencies in Missouri Provide $4 Million in Food Annually

Posted on by Christine Harbin

Using the “Show Me: The Spending” web tool, I isolated the amount of money that government agencies in Missouri have spent on agency-provided food during the last decade:

Trend of Agency-Provided Food In Missouri (2009 dollars)

Picture 3

When I was an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I sat on the Student Services Finance Committee, which allocated $28 million to student organizations providing educational and diversity services. During our budget hearings, the issue of organization-provided food was one of the more controversial.

I’ve always thought that food is an example of wasteful spending, whether it be funded by student-segregated fees or taxpayer dollars, because it isn’t available to and doesn’t directly benefit all students on campus, or all taxpayers within a state. Once it is consumed, it cannot be used again. Plus, $4 million per year is a big tab — and this sum doesn’t include money spent on food while traveling. If government agencies in Missouri stopped providing food, they could make up 2/3 of the revenue that is lost through the sales tax exemption on yachts, for example.

That stated, I realize that it is unrealistic for this number to be zero; there are certain situations in which agency-provided food can be appropriate. On the SSFC, we adhered to a food policy in order to be consistent and viewpoint neutral.

On the bright side, at least government agencies in Missouri haven’t increased their expenditure on food over the last decade.

At Least Four North Side Homes Slated for “Open Space”

Posted on by Audrey Spalding

The home of Shirley Hamilton, in the 2200 block of Madison Street, in Saint Louis' north side. Photo by Caitlin Hartsell.
The home of Shirley Hamilton, in the 2200 block of Madison Street, in Saint Louis’ north side.
Shirley Hamilton. Photo by Caitlin Hartsell.
Although NorthSide redevelopment plans for her area indicate that Hamilton’s neighborhood is slated to be replaced, Hamilton said she’s not concerned. As a resident of a city block with only three houses, she said, she’s been expecting this. “It’s been going on as long as I’ve been here,” she said.
Another home on the 2200 block of Madison. Photo by Caitlin Hartsell.
Another home on the 2200 block of Madison. Photos by Caitlin Hartsell.

Shirley Hamilton has been living at 2209 Madison since 1978. Her home is one of three houses on the 2220 block of Madison, all of which are small, but tidy. Between each house is a good amount of open space.

These three houses fall squarely within the boundaries of the recently approved $8.1 billion development of the city of Saint Louis’ north side. Of course, about 4,600 other properties also fall within those boundaries, but in the case of the 2200 block of Madison, NorthSide Regeneration LLC, the company behind the development, may be endangering one of its most frequently invoked promises.

That promise concerns the use of eminent domain. Although eminent domain is constitutional, it can be very unpopular, especially if it appears that a government agency is using that power merely to help a private business.

Proponents of the development, including developer Paul McKee, NorthSide lawyer Paul Puricelli, Alderman April Ford-Griffin, and Alderman Marlene Davis, have said repeatedly that the city won’t use eminent domain to take owner-occupied homes, and that fears to the contrary are unfounded. In fact, the company went even further. When NorthSide applied for millions of dollars in tax credits from the state, the company submitted an affidavit stating, among other things, that “The Applicant has not identified any owner-occupied residences for acquisition under the Redevelopment Plan.” McKee, the chief manager of NorthSide, signed it.

Along with that affidavit, NorthSide submitted a list of about 260 owner-occupied residences to the state. Hamilton’s home and the house sitting the farthest west on her block were on that list.

NorthSide has also disclosed some of its preliminary plans for the area in its redevelopment plan, which was submitted to the city when the company applied for nearly $400 million in tax increment financing (it has been approved for up to $380 million). One of the more interesting pages of that plan is page 24, which is a map of “proposed open space” for the area.

According to that map, NorthSide plans to remake four city blocks into open space: the area lying between Madison Street and Maiden Lane, west of 22nd Street and extending a little past Jefferson Avenue. In other words, despite all the assurances about the limits on eminent domain for the NorthSide project — including the affidavit of its chief manager — Hamilton and her neighbor are two owners who may not have long to occupy their homes.

That’s not to say that the company didn’t try to purchase Hamilton’s home. About a year ago, she said, she got a letter from a lawyer, representing an anonymous buyer, looking to purchase her home. When Hamilton called the number listed, she said, she was quickly offered $60,000 for the property. But Hamilton, who is retired, wasn’t interested in searching for a new home, and asked instead if the buyer could offer her a deed to a different property, elsewhere in the city. The lawyer promised to check, Hamilton said, but never called back. A few months later, Hamilton said, she was sent the same form letter.

Hamilton said that her next door neighbor did sell. According to city property data, the second house on the block is owned by MLK 3000, one of the companies that NorthSide used to acquire properties under the radar. Hamilton said she isn’t interested in moving, but if the developer could offer a trade instead of money, she would consider it. She’d like to stay in the city.

An email inquiring about how concrete the plans for open space are, and whether NorthSide would adjust its plans if property owners were unwilling to move, did not receive a response from Bill Laskowsky, NorthSide’s chief development officer, and a company representative.

Ultimately, Hamilton said, she’s not concerned. As a resident of a city block with only three houses, she said, she’s been expecting this.

“It’s been going on as long as I’ve been here,” she said. Laughing, she noted that when Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. was in office, her home was slated to become a golf course.

“I’ll deal with it when it comes,” she said.

According to NorthSide’s plans and its submitted list of owner occupied residences, two other homes appear to be slated for open space: one on the 2500 block of Madison, and one on the 2700 block of Glasgow Street.

Within other documents submitted by NorthSide, the company has designated the area surrounding Hamilton’s home as “mixed use,” which could indicate a different set of plans for the area.

Limiting Casino Competition

Posted on by John Payne

A committee in the Missouri House has heard a bill to keep the Missouri Gaming Commission from closing the President Casino (or any other casino) on “purely economic grounds.” The testimony makes clear the Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare into which the commission has placed the President Casino:

Some House lawmakers said the idea of “inadequate declining performance” seemed subjective and was a hard standard to interpret.

Rep. Vicki Englund, D-St. Louis County, questioned how the commission evaluates casino’s performance and asked lobbyist Jim McNichols, who testified on the commission’s behalf to explain how casinos could be expected to meet standards when they weren’t explicitly provided with standards to comply with.

McNichols said the commission works hard to involve casinos in the rulemaking process.

The Missouri Gaming Commission opposes the bill, but McNichols said he couldn’t speak to the specifics of the President Casino case because there was a pending legal matter.

This may strike some people as a crazy idea, but I think it should be up to the owners of a business to decide whether it lacks sufficient revenue to justify operating, not the decision of a government commission with no set standards by which it must abide. And, of course, if the President is forced to close, it is not only the casino’s owners, employees, and patrons that would suffer, but also gamblers at other casinos. Following the decrease in competition, casinos would be able to pay out a lower amount in winnings at the margin.

Missouri Gaming Commission Executive Director Gene McNary got right to the heart of the matter in his written testimony when he wrote that passing the bill to keep the President Casino open would “neuter the commission and, in effect, take away our ability to regulate Missouri’s gaming industry.” I doubt he shared my view that this would be a positive development, however.

Fine Idea for Shorter Legislative Sessions in Missouri

Posted on by David Stokes

Mr. Combest linked this morning to a story in the Jefferson City News-Tribune about a proposal to reduce the length of the legislative session in Missouri. To this I say, “Amen!” Just like the size of the legislature, the length of time in session is a factor in the logrolling potential that constantly builds pressure for more spending, more laws, more restrictions, etc. (Here is a link to a study demonstrating that professional legislatures — and length of time in session is one of the variables used to determine “professional” status — spend more money per person than citizen legislatures.)

So, I readily agree that Missouri should have a shorter session, because I basically agree with P.J. O’Rourke that preventing a politician from governing is like preventing a pit bull from eating your child. Anything that limits the ability of government to infringe on our freedoms is good by me. You can find a lot more on this subject in my paper about government in Missouri from the perspective of public choice economics.

I do wish someone would have called us to testify about this proposal, though. From the article:

No one spoke for or against the plan during Monday’s hearing.

Nobody ever said public choice economics was exciting. …

“Tax Seaduction”

Posted on by Christine Harbin

Missouri exempts yachts from sales taxes. And, like most selective sales tax exemptions, this policy has several negative consequences. Mike McGraw wrote about this in the Kansas City Star over the weekend (link via Combest).

First, there is a fiscal problem: Missouri is losing $6 million a year as a result of the exemption. The fact that Missouri is cutting other areas of its budget (e.g., education and battered women’s shelters) to address its deficit exacerbates this problem.

Second, there is a fundamental problem: The policy encourages rent-seeking. Boat producers benefit because the sales tax exemption provides an incentive for a person to buy a bigger boat than she would otherwise. From the article:

The additional revenue that taxing large boats would generate would be more than offset by sinking boat sales and lost jobs, said Mike Atkinson of the Lake of the Ozarks Marine Dealers Association. […]

Exemption-eligible boats appear to be especially popular with Jefferson City lobbyists, whose colleagues have fought for years to keep the tax break on the books.

I tried to brainstorm a list of consequences of the sales tax exemption on yachts that are positive, albeit admittedly insignificant, for the purpose of this post. For one, Missouri residents benefit from some ironic boat names, such as “Tax Haven,” “Tax Seaduction,” and “Special Interest.” (These are just as witty as Tiger Woods’ yacht, “Privacy.”) Additionally, this exemption removes any incentive for members of film production companies to misuse the film tax credit program in Missouri to purchase a yacht for their personal use. They’d have to go to a different state.

Parents as Teachers Urges Parents to Enroll Their Children in Breastfeeding Study

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

This article describes neuroscience research that seeks to explain an observed correlation between breastfeeding and higher child IQ scores. What caught my eye was the fact that a Parents as Teachers program in North Carolina helps recruit subjects for the study. Here, a Parents as Teachers educator expresses her approval:

“It’s very interesting and has a lot of validity,” said Marcie Petty, an educator with Parents as Teachers whose office is in Cheatham’s lab. “It makes you think about what your children eat and what they’re taking in.”

Encouraging participation in medical studies goes beyond Parents as Teachers’ mission of promoting good parenting practices. It’s entirely possible to be conscious of what your children are eating without signing them up for research.

I see two problems with Parents as Teachers recruiting subjects for studies. First, parents may not understand the difference between enrolling in a study and the other activities that Parents as Teachers promotes. Playing and reading helps their children learn; research helps scientists do their jobs. Parents may feel pressured into joining studies that won’t benefit their children one way or the other. They also might feel guilty if they go against the educator’s recommendation to enroll their children in research.

Second, as you know if you’ve read the comments to my last post on breastfeeding, people disagree about the effects of breast milk. Some researchers think breastfeeding is crucial for children’s health; others dispute its importance. No one study can put this question to rest. If Parents as Teachers educators tell parents that a study is valid and that it’s a good idea to participate in it, that could be viewed as an endorsement of the study’s findings.

I’ve never heard of a Missouri Parents as Teachers program suggesting that children join research studies. And, although Parents as Teachers programs are connected by a national organization, they’re run individually by local people, so the fact that a program in another state did something is no indication that it will happen here. Still, people need to know about what the program does in other places, and to consider whether those aspects should be replicated in Missouri or avoided. Any publicly funded programs that go to people’s homes and endorse specific activities need to be closely scrutinized — and that includes Parents as Teachers.

East Side Stripper Full Employment Act Advances

Posted on by John Payne

I’m quite a bit late on this one, but a couple of weeks ago, the Missouri Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill that would essentially shut down all strip clubs in Missouri. The bill would ban strippers from, well, stripping, because it would would require them to be at least partially clothed, and even when partially clothed, they must stay at least six feet away from customers. Oh, and they wouldn’t be able to serve liquor, either. I doubt many strip club patrons are going to want to go to a club where they can’t drink, and where the girls all have to walk around with tape measures to ensure they don’t get too close, so I suspect many of these businesses would likely close.

The most obvious consequence of these closings would be that people formerly employed in that segment of the adult business in Missouri would either seek new lines of work or move to other states that are more accommodating of their current professions. The supply of this good may diminish or even disappear, but the demand for it won’t go anywhere. This situation could easily lead to results that should give pause to the social conservatives who support this bill.

The increased hassle of the legislation might dissuade some people from consuming such lascivious services, but others will seek out substitutes. It would likely lead to an increase in the consumption of pornography and prostitution (and some unemployed strippers would probably enter the world of prostitution, as well). But that still may not be the worst of it.

A 2006 study by Clemson University economist Todd Kendall argued that greater access to Internet pornography helped drive down the incidence of rape during the prior two decades. In a Slate article, fellow economist Steven Landsburg summarized Kendall’s findings:

First, porn. What happens when more people view more of it? The rise of the Internet offers a gigantic natural experiment. Better yet, because Internet usage caught on at different times in different states, it offers 50 natural experiments.

The bottom line on these experiments is, “More Net access, less rape.” A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, poverty and unemployment rates, population density, and so forth.

OK, so we can at least tentatively conclude that Net access reduces rape. But that’s a far cry from proving that porn access reduces rape. Maybe rape is down because the rapists are all indoors reading Slate or vandalizing Wikipedia. But professor Kendall points out that there is no similar effect of Internet access on homicide. It’s hard to see how Wikipedia can deter rape without deterring other violent crimes at the same time. On the other hand, it’s easy to imagine how porn might serve as a substitute for rape.

If not Wikipedia, then what? Maybe rape is down because former rapists have found their true loves on Match.com. But professor Kendall points out that the effects are strongest among 15-year-old to 19-year-old perpetrators—the group least likely to use such dating services.

Moreover, professor Kendall argues that those teenagers are precisely the group that (presumably) relies most heavily on the Internet for access to porn. When you’re living with your parents, it’s a lot easier to close your browser in a hurry than to hide a stash of magazines. So, the auxiliary evidence is all consistent with the hypothesis that Net access reduces rape because Net access makes it easy to find porn.

There are legitimate reasons to question such a strong conclusion on Kendall’s part, some of which were pointed out by Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame, but it cannot be easily dismissed. Furthermore, it would be inappropriate to draw direct parallels between Kendall’s study and the strip club situation in Missouri, because they are not perfectly analogous. Most obviously, 15-year-old to 19-year-old boys are not likely to be found in strip clubs to begin with. Still, the general idea holds up. People seeking sexual gratification may turn to much worse alternatives in the absence of easy access to common consensual options like pornography and strip clubs.

Let me be very clear: I am not predicting that this law would result in a measureable uptick in rapes in Missouri. In fact, absent a good control group, it would be hard to establish statistical correlation, let alone causation. What we do have is some very suggestive evidence that the law of unintended consequences may apply to this law in a fierce way, and it is something that the law’s supporters should think carefully about.

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