A Regulation Story With a Happy Ending

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Missourian reports on raw milk and farmers who are threatened by regulation:

Vimont was one of seven farmers to receive violation notices from the State Milk Board last year for selling raw milk out of their homes.

Missouri law requires dairy producers to be inspected, certified and licensed by the board if they wish to sell their products through a third party such as a grocery store or at an event such as a farmers market.

The story has a happy ending, because when board officials learned the farmers were selling from their homes rather than through a store, they apologized and allowed it to continue.

Rep. Belinda Harris is proposing to allow unpasteurized milk and some other dairy products at farmers markets. Personally, I don’t find the risks acceptable and I wouldn’t choose to buy raw milk. But as long as products are clearly advertised as pasteurized or unpasteurized, people should be free to make that choice for themselves. Extending the freedom to farmers markets doesn’t seem like a big deal. After all, the people who show up at the local markets are probably the same neighbors who currently buy raw milk from farms.

Metro Cuts Take Effect

Posted on by Ryan Davisson

Metro, as previously announced, made cuts to its service yesterday. Bus service will be reduced by 44 percent, MetroLink by 32 percent, and the call-a-ride service by 15 percent. Also, the call-a-ride service will no longer provide transportation to those who reside west and south of I-270. Metro predicts that job access in Saint Louis County will fall from 98 percent to 71 percent.

This could cause the unemployment within Saint Louis County to increase in the medium run, especially when added to the 600 employees that Metro itself plans to terminate. In testimony before the Metro Board of Commissioners, Show-Me Institute policy analyst David Stokes contributed possible alternative solutions to cutting services while still making the budget. He found that one potential solution to avoid making the cuts would be to “increase the cost of individual tickets more than the cost of monthly passes. That way, regular riders who depend on mass transit would not be priced out of the system, and would still be able to purchase affordable monthly passes.”

In short, it seems there is an alternative revenue source method, and — as Stokes suggests — Metro could have avoided the service cuts and minimize the costs of restructuring. Overall efficiency should be at the heart of the debate.

Innovative Charter Schools Make Their Case

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The St. Louis Language Immersion Schools, which I mentioned in this op-ed about charter schools and foreign language instruction, have a new video up here. The schools offer both full language immersion and the International Baccalaureate curriculum, a combination not to be found in any other elementary school in the state.

I expect to see more innovation like this from charter schools as that sector of the education market continues to grow.

Lions and Tigers and Bears

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Katy Steinmetz writes about exotic pets in the Missourian. She comes down squarely on the side of the St. Louis County chickens. (Chickens are exotic? Only in St. Louis County.) However, she’s not in favor of allowing larger, potentially dangerous animals as pets.

The column elicited some interesting comments about the downsides of exotic pet regulation, not all of which I agree with. Such as:

While on the surface your logic seems quite appropriate, but may I point out that all species, even your golden retriever, started out as a “wild animal” in some form or another.

Yes, but it’s been a really long time since our ancestors were coaxing wolves to come closer to the fire. The average golden retriever is ready to be a pet. The average wolf isn’t.

Any pet, regardless of species, can be a good pet, as well as be a bad pet. It’s all dependent on the humans involved.

Even lions? I don’t think so. Some big, dangerous, undomesticated animals are just objectively bad pets.

The commenter anticipates my thought about lions:

You may think a lion, tiger, bear, or chimpanzee may seem terribly dangerous, but they actually account for such a miniscule amount of deaths and injuries each year per capita.

Not convincing, because so few people keep those animals. I can accept that a wild cat roaming the mountains and avoiding people by nature isn’t dangerous, and a bear confined in a zoo isn’t dangerous. But it would be dangerous to allow these animals in residential neighborhoods. If more people had them in their houses, they would “account for” more deaths.

This is a good point:

One problem with regulation is it creates a lack of new people learning the regulated skills. The fewer people that live in areas that are “allowed” to own a species, the fewer can have enough contact with the animals to learn to be able to handle that species.

But I still don’t think that outweighs the safety issue. If people want to learn to handle exotic animals, they should work in a zoo, and learn the skills in an environment where they’re less likely to endanger others.

Pension Fund Problems in Missouri

Posted on by Ryan Davisson

This Southeast Missourian article (link via Combest) opens up discussion on the state of public pension funds in light of the economic downturn. Public pension funds are problematic right now, because defined-benefit plans promise individuals the same amount of return from an unstable economy as they would receive from a stable economy — regardless of how much the investment has lost value.

Investment losses have turned a source of revenue into a deficit, which has hurt the pension funds. As a result, current public employees could see a rise in contribution payments.

For more detailed information regarding public pension funds, be sure to read the Show-Me Institute’s policy study on the subject, “Missouri’s Challenge: Managing Long-Term Employee Benefit Costs,” by scholar Richard C. Dreyfuss.

More on Crazy Licensing Requirements in the Wall Street Journal

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Last week, the Journal reported on a comedy troupe that’s being hounded by regulators. Today, there’s another article about regulators overstepping their bounds, this time to put obstacles in the path of potential tour guides. The city of Philadelphia requires tour guides to pass a history test and get a license — and that applies to anyone who talks about history in exchange for money.

Here’s the best sentence in the article:

As Robert McNamara, a lawyer who took on the case, distills his argument, “Government can’t make sure you understand the Constitution before it has to abide by it.”

Read the whole thing. And feel free to leave a comment, if your municipality allows you to discuss current events without a license.

Personal Property Tax Declarations and Jackson County

Posted on by David Stokes

Every single county in Missouri should follow Jackson County’s lead and allow people to file personal property tax declarations online. This is one of the simplest ways for local officials to save residents time and money (either the cost of a stamp, or through lower taxes because fewer government employees would be needed to sift through the mountains of declarations). If any other counties are doing this, please feel free to let me know.

Fire Districts and Assessors in Saint Louis County for Your Weekend Perusal

Posted on by David Stokes

The idea that Saint Louis County should have an elected assessor (thanks to Combest for this Business-Journal link) in Saint Louis County is a very good one, for reasons you can find in minute detail in my recent study of Missouri government. Let’s just say that the reasons involve logarithms. Fancy, eh?

The plan to require an actual vote in order to lower the tax rate ceiling in South St. Louis County (the Mehlville Fire District) is terrific. I think this has an excellent chance of passing, and it will go a long way to limit the unnecessary spending that fire districts have been engaging in for far too long. My concern is not that the current Mehlville board will spend too much. Rather, the ceiling decrease proposal would ensure that future boards have to go to the people for tax increases, instead of just automatically spending to meet the existing (high) rate ceiling. More local governments in Missouri need to examine this idea. From the article in the Call:

[Board President Aaron] Hilmer continued, “… One question people ask is: If the board can decide what the tax rate is, why let voters decide on this? All it would take is a vote of two Board of Directors members next year to, in effect, double the taxes that people are paying to the fire district. This is a chance for voters to ensure that never happens in the future …”

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