Census Bureau Spotlights Locavores and a Free-Market Redneck

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Yesterday, I wrote about the Census Bureau’s “Portrait of America” campaign, which is collecting videos from people as part of its road tour. Today, I returned to the 2010 Census website to watch some of the videos that are already up. (Click on “See Their Stories” if you’d like to follow along.)

These videos are more professional than anything people will produce at the “Portrait of America” kiosks. They show edited interviews with rural, small-town, and urban residents. Each segment tries to convince viewers that the Census is important.

I started with “Broadway” and watched Breanne and Dave talk about their urban garden. The video briefly mentions that the Census helps determine the allocation of grant money, including the funding their garden received. But, mostly, Breanne and Dave list the fruits and vegetables they’re growing. We also get to see a close-up of their coop, and to read this message:

So you can have a say in how your neighborhood grows.

This implies that how people garden in your neighborhood is something we all have to decide collectively — and that if you don’t fill out your Census form, you won’t get to choose between strawberries and tomatoes.

Next, I turned to “Pine Road.” (Who came up with these hokey names? Well, I guess I should just be glad they didn’t call it “Highway Census.”) You can’t miss the farmer’s market. I searched the scene in vain for a raw milk distributor — maybe they’re hiding the milk in one of those coolers in fear of a sting operation.

I listened to Chris’ story — and was amused by the Census Bureau’s stereotypical depiction of free-market supporters. Chris is a taxidermist. He doesn’t have a license to do this, because his state, Texas, doesn’t license taxidermists. That seems unremarkable. Why should you have to get a license to stuff dead wildlife? Who would the license protect? The animals? They’re already dead!

Chris doesn’t think we need any more laws and regulations about taxidermy. Because of this, the website informs us in the written preview of the video, Chris is reluctant to share any information with the government. In other words, this implies, if you don’t want your state to impose a bunch of extraneous license requirements on you, you must be a paranoid Texan who doesn’t want to fill out a form about how many people live in your household. And you probably have a whole herd of dead deer behind you, too.

Then, something amazing happens. The interviewer hands Chris a Census form. Chris has never seen one of these before and doesn’t know what’s on it. (I wonder where he was when we did this 10 years ago. Maybe he was too busy hunting.) In addition to being a skilled taxidermist, Chris is also an expert speed reader. He glances at the sheet for one second, expresses astonishment that it’s only a page long, and is converted. The Census doesn’t ask any questions about income, so Chris is willing to fill it out. The interviewer doesn’t bother to inform him that we tell the government about our income on a different form, one we’re supposed to fill out more often than once a decade.

Breanne, Dave, and Chris are all entitled to their opinions. What I don’t like is that the Census Bureau is using tax dollars to produce videos about them, giving the impression that personal gardens are good uses of federal funding or that Chris’ views are representative of free-marketers. The Census Bureau should stick to its job of administering the Census. If these other people want to share their lives, they can do that on YouTube.

One last thing, in case you’re wondering: If you want to be a taxidermist in Missouri, you’ll need to buy a $30 permit.

O Ye of Little Faith in Transit-Oriented Development

Posted on by David Stokes

There is a decent article in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch about proposals for transit-oriented development in St. Louis. I say “decent” because it has a lot of good information, but it also misses out on a few key points and never attempts to question government involvement in all of these projects. Read the article carefully, and then tell me if you can find one proposal discussed at all that does not involve significant government subsidies. Is transit-oriented development really profitable if every project depends on things like this?

That changed last fall, when the federal government made $1.5 billion in transportation funding available as part of its economic stimulus package. Metro and McCormack Baron partnered to apply for $19 million, a good chunk of the $43.2 million it would take to build the development project.

How can someone really say the following when every TOD project around MetroLink has been subsidized?

“There’s a market out there for this,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve quite recognized it yet.”

Look, I’d love to be wrong about this, and will gladly correct myself if someone can give me an example of a TOD project that succeeded on its own merits. Furthermore, I am fully aware that developments of all types in Missouri have been taxpayer subsidized, as I, along with others here at the Show-Me Institute, have also argued against. But I won’t buy into any dreams of St. Louis becoming a mass transit mecca until I see one TOD that succeeds without the crutch of the taxpayer subsidy. I expect to wait a long time.

George Bailey Wanted to Be an Urban Planner

Posted on by David Stokes

I, like billions of other people, watched It’s a Wonderful Life over the holiday season. Unlike many prior watchings, though, this time I sat down and watched the entire movie from beginning to end. I bet a lot of people have seen it mostly like I had, parts picked up here and there until you know the whole thing by heart. However, this time I picked up on a line which either I had not caught before or didn’t really care about before. When George Bailey is discussing his dreams with his father early in the film (scroll down to the third-quote from the bottom for most of the scene, but not this one line), he lists for his dad all the dreams he had, including a desire to “plan modern cities.”

Obviously, things got in the way — so that dream, like so many of George’s, never came true. But, thankfully, it all worked out in the end and Clarence got his wings. I have news for George Bailey: Pottersville was a planned city. Bedford Falls was not. Which one would you rather live in? (I know, I admit I’d rather hang out in Pottersville, too, but I want to live in Bedford Falls.)

Friends and Farmers

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

I enjoyed this column by Don Curlee about the USDA’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative. He asks an excellent question:

Will life be sweeter if we are personally acquainted with the guy who made our bathtub?

Most people have no desire for better knowledge of the workers who did their plumbing or built their garages. (Or who put together their carports, as the case may be.) Those workers contribute to our economy just like farmers do. So why does the USDA single out farmers for us to associate with?

Curlee wisely observes that even if you want to know your farmer, your farmer might not want to know you. Farmers, after all, are busy people with lives of their own. I agree. It’s patronizing of the USDA to assume that farmers want closer acquaintanceship with all the final consumers of their produce, as if farmers had infinite free time or lacked friends.

After reading the many sensible things Curlee says, I’m confused by this statement toward the end of the column:

Somebody at the USDA deserves credit for encouraging a closer relationship between food producers and food consumers.

People should feel free to cultivate relationships based on shared interests, ideas, and personalities — but you shouldn’t have to hang out with someone just because chance juxtaposed the two of you on the food supply chain.

It’s wrong for a federal agency to endorse farmers as uniquely worthy of friendship. For the same reasons, I’m opposed when Missouri schools present this ideology to children as an unchallenged truth.

165,903 Missourians Report No Income but Food Stamps

Posted on by Christine Harbin

Over the weekend, the New York Times published an article about a growing subset of Americans: those whose sole source of income is food stamps.

This population extends into Missouri. According to data collected from food stamp programs, the number of food stamp recipients in Missouri with no other cash income rose from 139,418 in June 2007 to 165,903 in June 2009. This represents an increase of 19 percent.

Single-Sex Classrooms and Single-Age Classrooms

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Reading this article about an all-girl charter school, I appreciate the parallel Leonard Sax draws between single-sex schooling and single-age schooling (thanks to the Panama City Renaissance School for the link):

Sax understands that single-gender classrooms may not be for everyone, but he believes people should have a choice. He also questions why schools segregate classrooms based on age but not gender.

It’s assumed that students will attend class with others of the same age because it’s gone on for so long. We’re used to it, and almost nobody protests age segregation in schools. But when a few single-sex charters open, or when districts allow single-sex classes, the idea threatens established educational policy and prompts knee-jerk condemnation. For example, the ACLU says it opposes single-sex public schooling “because it deprives both girls and boys of the benefits of co-education,” a statement that means nothing unless you specify what those benefits are and explain why students have a right to them. One could just as well criticize coed classrooms for depriving students of the benefits of single-sex education.

Sax brings up the analogy in order to argue for single-sex education, but it can also be used to justify teaching students of different ages in class together. Grouping students by sex isn’t for everyone; neither is grouping students by age. Like the parents who would choose coed classrooms even when a single-sex option is available, there are parents who would prefer multi-age classrooms if they had a choice.

It would be great if more public schools offered multi-age education. An easy way to do this is by opening charter schools; parents who want multi-age classes could enroll their children in charters with this specialty. Or traditional public schools could start multi-age tracks, the same way that Parkway’s Carmen Trails Elementary offers elective single-sex classes.

How Did We Get Into This Health Care Mess?

Posted on by Stephen Feman

Many people would like the relationships in health care to follow a straightforward economic pattern. They imagine that the doctor-patient relationship should look like an Intro to Economics price to quantity graph, with physicians as suppliers and patients as demanders. If that were the case, simply adding more doctors could shift the supply curve and create a new equilibrium. They think that would produce a lower price for health care and resolve many of America’s health care concerns. The real world, however, is not quite like that.

The first, and most obvious, problem is that the physician supply has not kept up. That is one of the many reasons why the United States is being inundated with foreign-trained physicians. As another post showed, the number of U.S. physicians is inadequate for our country’s needs now. The most reliable resources indicate that there may be a shortfall of 150,000 by the year 2025. If the economics of health care followed the simple model described above, then the supply curve would shift in the undesired direction. In that case the price of health care would become even greater than the dollar figures mentioned in the current political debate.

But there is more. The demand for health care has increased much more than expected. A look at the Congressional Research Service’s demographic charts shows that there are many more older people in this country. The United States is in the midst of a profound demographic change, and has had an overall aging of its population; this has been characterized by the increased proportion of persons aged 65 and older in our population. In general, as people get older, they use more health care. The result may be a shift of both the supply and demand curves. Using that old economics diagram, the resulting equilibrium will be higher and much more costly.

However, some argue that physicians are more than just the suppliers of health care. Those people feel that physicians may be a part of the problem themselves and some physicians may stimulate overuse of the heath care system. In the recent past, President Barack Obama spoke to the American Medical Association about this issue, and implied that physician behavior may be one of the factors driving up costs. He suggested that some doctors create a demand for services, and their intervention has contributed to the problems of the health care market. The difficulty with that argument is in separating issues that relate to demand from the physician role as the gatekeeper to health care system. Physicians are often the means that patients use to initiate access the health care system. However, the health care demand exists in and of itself; it is an independent factor. All that physicians do is show they care for patients by responding to the existing demand.

If physicians are not the cause of the problem, is physician supply a factor of concern? It is important to be aware that some believe an increase in physician supply does not translate into better care. In fact, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, some recent reports indicate that patients’ satisfaction with care, and patients’ perceptions of access, are no better in high physician supply regions than in low physician supply regions. With that understanding, many argue that more physicians may not result in better care for patients. People who follow that argument believe that what we need is improved efficiency, not more doctors, to produce a more cost-effective result. (See: Skinner et al, “The Elusive Connection Between Health Care Spending and Quality.” Health Affairs 28, w119–w123, 2009.)

Could it be that what we need is both more doctors and more efficiency? In some countries with different health care systems, demographic predictions of this variety have resulted in significant changes in hospital design and physician education. The demographic details for our country present a pretty strong argument showing that there will not be enough physicians for your care when you get older. At the same time, every one could use more efficiency. How will the combined House and Senate bills respond to these issues?

Dave Roland Quoted on Charter Schools

Posted on by Christine Harbin

The Show-Me Institute’s Dave Roland was recently quoted in an article about charter schools in the Springfield News-Leader. He communicates some benefits:

“Part of the reason (traditional public) schools have gotten into the situation they are in — having quality problems — is they effectively have a captive audience. They don’t have to earn students,” said Dave Roland of the Show-Me Institute, a think tank that promotes free-market solutions to public policy.

“Wealthy parents already have the option of moving into the best school districts, or the best zoning within districts,” he said. “The idea of school choice is we make sure low-income parents have the same range of options.”

Support Us

The work of the Show-Me Institute would not be possible without the generous support of people who are inspired by the vision of liberty and free enterprise. We hope you will join our efforts and become a Show-Me Institute sponsor.

Donate
Man on Horse Charging