Remove Foot, Close Mouth, Praise the Free Market

Posted on by Jacob Voss

For some reason, the federal government has been all about the free market this week. Even our very own lame duck, George W. Bush, had some inspiring words about economic freedom today. El Presidente spoke in front of The Manhattan Institute of New York — a free-market economic think tank. (Gee, that sounds familiar.)

Some highlights of the speech include Bush praising the free market as the best approach to promote business, and stating that smarter government — not larger government — is beneficial. Truly words to live by, as ironic as they may be coming from Dubya’s mouth. Say what you will, but the man has been the greatest cheerleader the free market has had of late.

Anyway, check out the article (link via Drudge) before getting into any yo momma battles in the comments section. There was once a time when I would not have had to give this stipulation.

Every Time I Go to the Pump, It’s Like the Sale of the Century

Posted on by Josh Smith

The title of this post comes from something I overheard another QT customer commenting to the person next to them at the pump.

I realize I’ve blogged about this recently, but I feel sure that it is an economic issue that hits close to home for virtually every person who reads this blog. Gas prices just keep falling. On Tuesday, USA Today reported that our fair state has the lowest average prices in the country, at $1.93 per gallon. And another article today points out that prices are expected to continue to fall.

Remember the bad news of a few months ago? Remember oil executives getting dragged in front of Congress? I was very happy when someone pointed me to this piece at the time. It served to remind me that not all people see high prices, even of so-called essential commodities, as evidence of corporate abuse. But now the storm is over. Global decline in demand worked through the market to signal the “all clear” to American gas consumers (at least for the time being). Competition keeps oil companies from maintaining $4 a gallon when the price per barrel drops 40 percent. Profits that truly rise above a market level aren’t sustainable in the long term without government-granted monopoly privileges.

I’d love to see a headline just once in the mainstream press to the effect of: “Gas Prices Reasonable Again: Thanks, Laissez-Faire.” Not likely, but the market certainly did more to lower gas prices than any gas-tax holiday. Unless we’re talking about a permanent gas-tax vacation.

Another Thing to Like About St. Charles County Government

Posted on by David Stokes

We have praised county government in St. Charles a few times here at the Show-Me Institute. The primary reason is their refusal to use tax increment financing in the unincorporated areas, and to fight it when the municipalitites use TIFs. But they just did another thing that we have called for several times here at our friendly little blog — they have gotten rid of their government lobbyist!

Political Fix has the story here. Now St. Charles will use current employees to handle those duties — but from within the scope of their current jobs, not as brand-new positions devoted to doing the same things the lobbyist did. Kudos to County Executive Steve Ehlmann for making this move. We do not need one level of government paying lobbyists to get money from other levels of government. That just grows the leviathan, and the influence of government at every level in our lives.

As I have said before, don’t take my words here as an attack on lobbying as such. I have nothing against lobbyists, and certainly nothing against Jim Cooper, whom I have never met. I just dislike the practice of using tax dollars to lobby for more tax dollars from another government. Thanks to Combest for the link, and to Brian Simpson for covering the move as well.

The Free Market Is My Copilot

Posted on by Jacob Voss

Well, it looks like Missouri fliers are going to have to be pretty dependent on the free market to get them to their destinations on time from now on. In a surprising move, a government task force dedicated to eliminating long waits and delays at airports has decided that the best solution to the problem is to let the airlines figure it out for themselves. Details can be found here.

In a world congested with government mandates, this bit of news is a breath of fresh air. Next thing you know, Uncle Sam will be letting us pick our own schools and decide whether or not we want ethanol in our gas tanks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Fingers Crossed

Posted on by Dave Roland

The Suburban Journals have an interesting story today about Wentzville’s contemplation of a proposal that would reduce the regulatory burden on home businesses. The city currently requires those working out of their homes to submit to a frustrating permitting process and intrusive home inspections. Kudos to the city’s economic development director, Bob Swank, who realized that the city would be better served to make it easier for home-based businesses to start up, and to focus on policing business owners only when their practices generate complaints, rather than constantly attempting to oversee all people with a business license. This is a truly inspired approach to economic development, and one that more cities should consider.

Missouri Virtual Instruction Program Update

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

The Missouri Virtual Instruction Program (MoVIP) got off to a somewhat rocky start. Eagerly sought middle school courses were missing at first, and it was not clear what the available courses would cover or how the program would work.

Today, I took another look at the MoVIP website and am pleased to report that those initial problems have been straightened out. The site contains many resources, including: numbers of students enrolled at each grade level (more than 300 students are now enrolled in the middle school courses); a course demo; calendars, schedules, and other documents; and course descriptions.

The course descriptions are very thorough. They list textbooks, required projects, and course goals, so parents don’t have to guess what goes on in “Second Grade Science.” The explanations of how the program teaches reading and foreign language vocabulary are especially informative. You sometimes hear that a parent expected a school to use one teaching method and was upset to encounter another (phonics, new math, etc.). I can’t imagine that happening with MoVIP because they provide so much information up front.

With 100 to 300 students enrolled per grade level, MoVIP isn’t yet big enough to change the status quo in Missouri public education. I hope, as word spreads about this program, that it will spur healthy competition between virtual school and the traditional districts.

Calling All Third-Party Candidates

Posted on by David Stokes

Missourinet has an interesting story about the Constitution Party in Missouri (link via Mr. Durrwachter-Combest). Because the party hit the 2-percent statewide vote threshold in the recent state treasurer’s race, it is now poised to receive automatic ballot access in Missouri.

Ballot access status is one of the more important and underconsidered issues for third parties. Until you have it, you must spend a great deal of time gathering signatures merely to get on the ballot — time that would be much better spent trying to convince people that your ideas are worthy of their vote. A very smart way to do this is to run candidates in races in which one of the two major parties sits out. The Green Party has figured this out in the city of Saint Louis, where it has run candidates in races where no Republican files. In those cases, they get votes from all types of people who show up to vote and don’t want to support the establishment candidate, and it has been easy for them to hit the threshold for ballot access in city elections. Now they don’t have to waste time gathering signatures, but can actually try to get people to vote for them.

Now, I am not a supporter of a third party, but it is just as easy a move to pull in strongly GOP districts where no Democrat files. If Green or Libertarian Party candidates file against a Republican with no Democrat opposition, they can readily expect to get a certain number of votes from Dems who show up with nobody to support. Then they can spend less time in supermarket parking lots getting people to sign their candidacy petitions, and more time in supermarket parking lots trying to convince people that their third-party ideals aren’t insane. Isn’t democracy fun!

Reason Talks About Truck-Only Lanes in Missouri

Posted on by David Stokes

From the latest email edition of Surface Transportation Innovations, by Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation:

Progress on Truck Toll Lanes

In September I chaired a panel on truck-only toll lanes at the ARTBA Public-Private Ventures conference. In addition to overview discussions on the federal Corridors of the Future program and the general concept of truck toll lanes, two presentations focused on specific project proposals, one long-haul and the other urban.

The long-haul project would add truck-only lanes (almost certainly tolled) to I-70 across four states: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. That would serve the important truck corridor from the multimodal centers of Kansas City on the west to Columbus (and a bit beyond) on the east. Presenter Steve Wells summarized the current supplemental environmental impact study that HNTB is conducting for Missouri DOT on the truck lanes concept. MoDOT has conducted public opinion research which found strong support for the widening of I-70 to be accomplished via truck-only lanes.

Defining Terms

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

There tends to be occasional confusion in the media about how exactly to pigeonhole the Show-Me Institute. One of the most common inaccurate labels is “conservative,” and “right-wing” would probably take second place. We’ve always been careful to distinguish ourselves as a “free-market” think tank — but many people aren’t sure what that entails, either, presuming it to be perhaps a dissembling appellation for corporate apologists. But, as famed economist Milton Friedman put it, “There’s a common misconception that people who are in favor of a free market are also in favor of everything that big business does. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Over at Cato Unbound this week, philosophy professor Roderick Long has written an essay that outlines some crucial differences between free markets and state-supported corporatism (link, along with some thoughtful commentary, via my pal Wirkman Virkkala). Essays of response and discussion will be posted online presumably every day or two throughout the next couple of weeks, as per the usual Cato Unbound format. In today’s essay, though, Long got off to a powerful start:

Corporations tend to fear competition, because competition exerts downward pressure on prices and upward pressure on salaries; moreover, success on the market comes with no guarantee of permanency, depending as it does on outdoing other firms at correctly figuring out how best to satisfy forever-changing consumer preferences, and that kind of vulnerability to loss is no picnic. It is no surprise, then, that throughout U.S. history corporations have been overwhelmingly hostile to the free market. Indeed, most of the existing regulatory apparatus—including those regulations widely misperceived as restraints on corporate power—were vigorously supported, lobbied for, and in some cases even drafted by the corporate elite.

It’s no coincidence that the Show-Me Institute’s board of directors designated that one of our six policy areas would study the adverse effects of corporate welfare.

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