Kansas City Cuts Costs, Keeps Control of KCI

Posted on by David Stokes

Like an airplane landing in a river immediately after takeoff, a Kansas City council committee has killed even the consideration of privatizing the airport. The Star has the story. The committee failed to advance the proposal on a tie vote. And, while the city council is killing even the thought of an idea that could bring KC hundreds of millions of dollars, the mayor, council, and city manager are debating how to cut the city budget.

I commend the city manager and mayor for proposing significant lay-offs to deal with the budget, rather than passing tax increases. The fact is that way too many people in America work for the government. I realize that recessions may be the worst time to lay people off, but they are also the only time government does it. I’d be happy to see governments keep people on during bad times and lay them off in good times when they would have less trouble finding work, but it never works that way. Either you lay them of in the tough times or the government just grows and grows. In my opinion, the latter is far worse for our freedoms and budgets.

I do have a few suggestion for the city. If you are not going to privatize the airport, you could start small by privatizing the golf courses. And this entire idea should just be dropped:

Funkhouser also proposed several other changes, including spending an additional $500,000 for a citizen engagement program. He said he wanted the city to hire an ombudsman, a volunteer coordinator, a director of community engagement and several community organizers to dramatically improve residents’ engagement in government decision-making.

I am all for transparency and open government, but I draw the line at spending money like this. Government should just do the things it needs to do, and not spend money telling people what it is going to do as part of a PR scheme. Even worse is when officials try to get the thoughts of the 1 percent of cranks that attend public hearings for every pothole scheduled to be filled. Don’t waste time and money sending out a questionnaire for everything. Just do it as efficiently as possible, and voters will tell you whether you are doing the right thing by their votes. And their e-mails. And their phone calls. And their blog posts. And their anonymous, threatening letters. …

Financial Stability Coming Soon

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Here’s a website that makes Transform Missouri look professional and confidence-inspiring: FinancialStability.gov. It’s been up for a few weeks, but it still says, “This site is coming soon.” You can scroll down for a bunch of fact sheets, but that’s all. This is what the whole Internet looked like when I had computer class in fifth grade.

I would be happy if I thought the federal government wasn’t paying anyone to work on this website. But I’m afraid they are paying somebody, and he’s just incompetent.

Legislators Say, “Never Again!”

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Although Nadya Suleman doesn’t live in Missouri, her case provoked enough outrage here that Missouri lawmakers want to prevent anything similar from happening again. This AP story outlines the latest developments in the effort to limit the number of embryos that can be implanted in a woman.

I don’t like this, because it limits doctors’ freedom and it’s not targeted to prevent abuses of the technology. If a doctor implants too many embryos and none of them develop successfully, he shouldn’t be liable for that. If the public is angry about Suleman’s dependence on public aid, I don’t understand how a bill that applies to everyone — not just those receiving state assistance — would solve future problems. What about a couple that could afford several children, don’t have any children, have four embryos implanted, and get quadruplets? Is that such a terrible situation that we need laws to prevent it? Women don’t have octuplets every day, and fertility treatments don’t work well enough to allow everyone to have that many kids. This is taking a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence and basing broad legislation on it.

I also don’t like the implication that women on welfare shouldn’t have kids. As a society, we’ve come up with this policy that encourages women to have more children than they can afford. Most don’t have 14, but it can happen. I don’t think people are just responding to the interesting use of technology in Suleman’s case. It’s partially that she has more kids than they think she should. So, who’s going to come up with the limit? Where will we draw the line? One child per family? Or no new children once you go on welfare?

And, because everyone potentially benefits from public schools and other programs, this isn’t only about welfare. If someone has eight children and sends them all to public school, there’s a cost to taxpayers. I’m afraid we’re heading down the road of limits on family sizes for everyone, like in China.

Using My Tax Dollars to Restrict My Freedom

Posted on by David Stokes

There is a lot of great stuff up on Combest today, so I’ll give him general credit for links to these articles right at the beginning. Two things we have written a lot about on this blog are the use of lobbyists by governments (spending tax dollars to get somebody else’s tax dollars) and issues of individual rights, such as seat-belt laws or red-light cameras. So, imagine my disgust when I read complaints in the News-Leader about MoDOT employees who spend their time lobbying the legislature to enact a primary seat-belt law, basically allowing the police to pull you over if they see you not wearing a seat belt.

I am a big fan of MoDOT and Director Pete Rahn, and I was writing their praises before it was cool to do so. But the use of MoDOT employees to lobby to restrict individual rights while on the taxpayers’ clock is simply awful. It is bad enough that so many people are more than happy to give up their rights in the name of safety, but now we are all being forced to pay for unelected government employees to try to take away more of those rights? I commend the legislators who objected to this, and I again refer you to Carl Bearden’s article about this subject, which was published in various places a few months ago.

School Closings in Chicago

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The St. Louis Public School District isn’t the only district faced with declining enrollment and the need to close buildings. The Chicago Public Schools are in the same predicament. And it seems their protesters are just as fired up as the opponents of SLPS’ school closings:

Nearly two dozen school supporters camped out in tents overnight on the sidewalk in front of the district’s Loop headquarters. Hundreds of protesters chanted “save our schools” and carried makeshift coffins.

Looking through the Tribune articles on the topic, I don’t see any restrictions in Chicago about selling buildings to charter schools, though. Chicago already has dozens of charter school campuses, though, so it could be that they’re more accepted there.

Speaking of Chicago, maybe Steven Levitt will address school closings along with the other urban problems he’s going to write about in Superfreakonomics.

Stimulus Money

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The state of Missouri is going to get so much money, it doesn’t know what to do with it all. It’s created a website where you can give it suggestions: Transform Missouri. So far, suggestions are pouring in at the rate of 2,000 ideas each week.

Also, this Springfield News-Leader article about the stimulus reports that a panel convened to study the stimulus has recommended sending a temporary lobbyist to Washington, D.C. My guess is that, like the rest of the stimulus, any lobbyist who’s put in place won’t be as temporary as he’s made out to be. Governments have a way of starting programs in response to “emergencies,” and then keeping them in place long after the original need has passed. Missouri did have a lobbyist in Washington for many years, even without a stimulus to divvy up. The supposedly temporary lobbyist will probably just be a reinstatement of the position.

For another perspective on the stimulus, read this quote from Gov. Nixon:

“The bottom line is, I don’t think at this time, with this economy, that a chief executive should walk away from this opportunity. My golly, this is chance to transform our economy” […]

Amusing Exchange in the Atlanta Journal Constitution

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Edspresso links to two op-eds about parental choice in education published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The piece in favor of choice is by Jeb Bush, and talks about the Opportunity Scholarship Program in Florida. The piece against is by Dave Belton, a board of education member in a Georgia county. But he’s not really against:

I’m not against targeted vouchers — and I’m not against competition. Kids in failing schools should be allowed to leave and find a good education. But let’s limit that system to people who really need it. Let’s walk before we run.

So he wouldn’t mind scholarships to take kids out of failing schools, he just doesn’t want a mass exodus. Well, Mr. Belton, there’s no need to worry. The public schools that are doing a great job will hold on to students no matter how many scholarships you give out. Helping kids escape failing schools is the whole point of the scholarship proposals that states are considering!

Boys’ Class, Girls’ Class

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Thanks to The Grade for pointing out this Today show feature about single-sex public education. The first few minutes show scenes from the Carmen Trails Elementary School boys’ and girls’ classes. As often happens when the media reports on Carmen Trails, the boys are studying while the girls are doing something considerably less rigorous (in this case, hearing a story about “movie stars”), but maybe things even out when the cameras stop rolling.

In the discussion afterward, I appreciated Dr. Leonard Sax’s comments that parents who can afford private schools have the option of single-sex education, but others don’t have a choice. And I thought Latifa Lyles made no sense when she said single-sex programs have been successful for reasons other than sex separation, so we shouldn’t start any more such programs. Huh? If single-sex classrooms don’t make a difference by themselves, but somehow manage to bring other factors on board and improve education, what’s wrong with that?

Karl Frank has an interesting suggestion on The Grade: he thinks young students should be separated by birth date, rather than by sex. That would make the existing yearly cutoff less of a big deal, if there were two or three cutoffs for different classes.

This can’t go on forever — we can’t guarantee every child a spot in a class of students who are exactly like him or her — but giving parents more choices about class composition is a good thing.

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