Should Cities Operate Water Parks and Rec Centers?

Posted on by David Stokes

Hazelwood, a suburb of St. Louis, has just opened a new water park. The Suburban Journals has the story. The park continues a long trend of municipalities operating substantial recreation centers, with swimming, exercise equipment, basketball courts, meeting rooms, indoor rinks, etc. To name just a few in the St. Louis area, there is The Heights in Richmond Heights, The Center of Clayton, The Pointe at Ballwin Commons, and so on. My family belongs to, and we frequently use, University City’s Centennial Commons. But let’s step back a moment and ask whether this is something governments should be doing.

To some extent, clearly yes. Outside of a few radical libertarians (a category that does not include me) just about everyone believes government should provide parks. Public swimming pools are an obvious part of a park system. But what about exercise equipment? Private gyms are certainly able to meet the needs of people wanting to work out, and putting together a fitness facility at one’s home is not that tough or expensive, assuming you go with a Rocky IV–style training regimen and skip the Ivan Drago excesses.

I generally believe that government should not provide services that the private sector is able to provide. Parks and swimming pools are things everyone should be able to enjoy, and not everyone can get to what the private sector provides in those areas and join a country club. But its not like these new rec facilities are free. You pay for them with your taxes, and then you pay for the membership. At least at Bally’s, you only pay for the membership. So while I will be enthusiastically using the University City fitness facility tonight, I admit I am somewhat torn about it. The private sector can, and did, give me a fine option with Wellbridge, before Centennial Commons opened. What’s worse is that the taxpayer-subsidized facilities are competing with private gyms and clubs, and that is hard to argue for. Competition is great, but not when one entity is supported by tax dollars.

These facilities are an obvious example of Tiebout’s theories of municipal competition at work, which is a good thing, albeit an expensive one. People can choose to live in a city with higher taxes that provides extra services like a recreation complex, or they can choose to live elsewhere, like unincorporated St. Louis County, which is closing some of its rec centers and pools as attendance declines — largely because cities are opening up their own new facilities as part of increased annexations.

So, like many a good blog post, this one ends with no conclusions. I do think many of the new rec centers are excessive, but I love Centennial Commons. So, hey, that’s why we have a comments section now!

Crank That Radio: SMI Policy Analyst On the Air Monday Morning

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

Show-Me Institute policy analyst David Stokes will be interviewed Monday morning at 7:10 a.m. on the Allman and Crane show, broadcast on 97.1 FM Talk. Stokes will be talking about his recently published case study, “The Economic Impact of the Missouri E-10 Ethanol Mandate,” which he cowrote with Justin Hauke.

Be sure to tune in, and tell your friends to do the same!

The Ins and Outs (Or Ups and Downs) of Turnout

Posted on by Cynthia Juedemann

Let’s talk about turnout.

Specifically, let’s talk about turnout in Missouri school district elections. And not the usual rant about how it’s shamefully low (it is), but about what affects it.

For more than a month now, I’ve been working to create a database, which will eventually be publicly available, that details voter turnout in Missouri school district elections. Out of the number of eligible voters in any given district, how many show up to express an opinion? The answer? Usually 20 percent or less.

The real answer? Well, we just don’t know.

Continue reading “The Ins and Outs (Or Ups and Downs) of Turnout”

Religious Beliefs Aren’t Special

Posted on by Matt Simpson

Blogging about 120 miles away from me, in the Columbia office, fellow intern Audrey Spalding claims that we should offended by a Missouri superintendent’s decision to put a biblical quote at the bottom of his emails. Imagine for the moment that, instead of placing a religious quote at the bottom of his emails, the superintendent had a pet philosohpical quote with no religious relevance. For the sake of concreteness, consider this quote from David Hume:

Actions may be laudable or blameable; but they cannot be reasonable: Laudable or blameable, therefore, are not the same with reasonable or unreasonable. The merit and demerit of actions frequently contradict, and sometimes controul our natural propensities. But reason has no such influence. Moral distinctions, therefore, are not the offspring of reason. Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals.
— A Treatise of Human Nature, book 3, part 1, section 1

This quote is bound to be controversial. Other philosophers would surely disagree — e.g., Kant — and I’m sure the average Joe would take issue with calling morality “irrational” in any sense, which is essentially what Hume is doing. Should we be offended if a school superintendent includes this in his emails? I don’t see why. Sure, the belief is controversial, but we shouldn’t be offended by beliefs merely because they are controversial. There is nothing in the quote to suggest that people who believe otherwise are stupid, immoral, evil, or anything else of that nature.

Including the quote in emails may be motivated by a desire to convert others to the same belief. I have a hard time seeing how this is objectionable, though, considering that the purpose of schools is to do essentially the same thing. Do we not desire to convert children to the belief that 2 + 2 = 4? Perhaps it’s the desire to convert someone to this type of belief that is at issue. Perhaps moral issues should be left out of the classrooms, then. But, first of all, I don’t think a school can function without addressing moral issues. What are we doing when we tell kids that it is wrong to hit each other? Second of all, if this were the issue, it is relatively minor compared to other forms of ideological indoctrination happening inside the classroom.

The method of conversion isn’t objectionable, either. No one is forced to read the quote; they are merely given the opportunity to do so. The same can’t be said for ideological peddling, which goes on inside the classroom.

The only thing that seems to be different is that the superintendent’s quote refers to a deity, and my quote does not. Should it really be offensive to simply to hear about a deity?

Someone might argue that the Constitution has specific language regarding religion, but not regarding meta-ethics — and that is why religion is special. While completely true, this is irrelevant to the question of whether we should get offended about such a quote. This argument ignores the possibility that the Constitution simply got something wrong.

I agree that the superintendent shouldn’t have included the quote in his emails, but not because we should be offended, or because it is intrinsically immoral. The problem is that some people will be offended, which will only cause problems for the school district.

Separate

Posted on by Audrey Spalding

“You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is of the heart.” — 2 Corinthians 3:2–3

That is one of two quotes with which a Missouri superintendent closed his email (the other was about WD-40 and duct tape). Later that day, after receiving the email, I sent a Sunshine Law request to another district, Genesis. Yet another biblical reference in Missouri public education.

Regardless of the intent or belief expressed, it’s important to keep church and state separate.

I doubt the superintendent intends to offend or convert with the quote. I’m not writing here to berate him for quoting the Bible. What bothers me is that the email came from his school district account. And, to emphasize, the school district is a public institution funded by Missouri taxpayers.

When he uses that email address, he is acting in a public capacity as superintendent. When he automatically includes a biblical quote at the end of each and every email he sends, it looks like an endorsement. Regardless of majority leanings, not all Missourians are Christian, or even believe in a god. And even those who share the superintendent’s belief should be offended. This is not just a matter of courtesy to the non-religious, this is more. He is using his role as the spokesman of a multi-million-dollar public organization to broadcast his personal beliefs.

In the past year, we’ve seen that emails from a government address are publicly available, and treated as any other office memo. Superintendents should be as careful about inserting their beliefs into public correspondences. That’s what private email is for.

Internship Applications Due Today!

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

For those of you considering the possibility of a fall internship with the Show-Me Institute, this is a reminder that applications are due today. We’ll continue to accept applications until Monday, so those who have learned about our internship program just now, from this very blog entry, will have time to put an application together.

If you’re a college student, we’d love to consider you. If you know a college student, be sure to spread the word about this great opportunity.

Beneficial Political Competition …?

Posted on by Matt Simpson

No, that’s not an oxymoron. Seriously. …

When political units are small and decentralized, competitive pressure can create market-like outcomes. It’s imperfect, because consumers — i.e., citizens — have to purchase bundles of services rather than purchasing each service separately. However, it’s much better than a large, centralized polity. The key is that the cost of switching to a new political jurisdiction is low. The smaller the polity, the smaller the cost when everything else is equal.

The Post-Dispatch reports on this sort of competition at work in Missouri. The small town of Albany has passed an ordinance legalizing the use of golf carts within city limits. Each golf cart must have an attached seven-foot orange flag, and an annual permit costing $15. Why, exactly was this ordinance passed? Well…

City Administrator Derek Brown said several residents asked the city to legalize the use of golf carts, saying the practice would be cheaper than traveling around town in a car.

It seems gas prices have played a large role in this, but the point is that residents asked for it, and got it. Sure, this sort of thing happens on the federal level, too, but the difference in this case is that residents who don’t like it can leave at a much lower cost. If they do leave, the city’s coffers will begin to dwindle, pressuring city officials to change the law — or, perhaps, become a niche city for golf carr lovers.

This sort of system is exactly what the founders had in mind with federalism. A central government is better apt to provide a few things like defense and dispute resolution between the smaller political units. At the same time, smaller competing polities, like states, counties, and municipalities, provide a somewhat competitive market for government. This does a better job of providing each citizen with the bundle of policies they want. The problem seems to be preventing the transfer of political power from state and local governments to the national government.

The Points of Energy

Posted on by Matt Simpson

Prime Buzz reports:

Missouri 6th District congressional candidate Kay Barnes today released a major policy stance on energy, a 5-point plan to deal with rising gas prices.

Naturally, I have a point-by-point response.

The 5 points of her new plan are:

  • Increasing domestic drilling, by compelling oil companies to use the leases they currently have to drill on federal lands.

Increasing domestic drilling is a good idea to help alleviate the effects of the high price of gas in the short term. However, compelling oil companies to drill more is the wrong way to go about this. I’m not sure about the details of the leases to these federal lands, but I can suggest one way to structure them: If the leases were tradeable commodities (perhaps they wouldn’t be leases anymore) then we can expect whoever values the lease the most to purchase it — which probably would be whoever is willing to drill now. On the other hand, the oil companies may be betting that there is no end in sight, and holding oil in the ground until the price rises even more. If that is the case, a bit of pain now is much better than extreme pain later.

  • Repealing tax breaks and subsidies for big oil companies, or redirect such subsidies toward renewable energy sources such as biofuels.

I’m all for making the tax system less complicated by removing exceptions, and I’m in favor of eliminating subsidies — but redirecting them toward biofuels is a bad idea. The incentive to develop alternatives is already huge, and not likely to be affected by government action. Attempts to manipulate the market may end up doing more harm than good.

  • Supporting House-passed legislation directing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to curb speculation in the energy markets. A so-called “Enron loophole” had previously exempted electronic energy traders from U.S. regulation.

Speculation actually eases the pain of economic change. When speculators bet on future price changes, they either prematurely increase or decrease the price, depending on what they think the future holds. This eases the pain of economic change because it makes price changes more gradual, rather than arriving as sudden shocks. These speculators also probably know more about future price movements than anyone else. After all, they are the ones with money on the line.

  • Lowering federal trade and budget deficits, which would strengthen the value of the dollar when buying foreign oil, thus indirectly lowering the cost of oil.

A surefire way to strengthen the value of the dollar would be to raise interest rates by slowing the growth of the money supply. Barnes wouldn’t have control of that, however, so it’s hard to fault her for leaving this out. However, the high price of oil isn’t the only concern when it comes to manipulating exchange rates. A more favorable exchange rate means less foreign investment in the U.S., and fewer exports.

  • Increasing fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, something that Congress started doing again for the first time in three decades when it passed higher fuel economy standards six months ago.

This will either be irrelevant or raise the cost of cars for the average consumer. It will most likely be irrelevant, because consumers are voluntarily choosing to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. It’s amazing how well markets coordinate action.

This policy bundle seems rather questionable to me. There is some merit to at least part of some of the five points, but I have trouble throwing my hat behind any single policy on the list. I wonder what Kay’s opponent, incumbent Sam Graves, is proposing.

Missouri in Relatively Good Standing

Posted on by Dan Grana

Last week, I was introduced to the Tax Foundation’s Tax Freedom Day report. Aside from being an educational visualization of the confusing tax structure in this country, the report gives a breakdown of total tax burdens by state. A quick look at the map shows that, generally, wealthier states pay more taxes than poorer states. Looking into this relationship, I produced the following chart, comparing the per-capita personal income of each state with the number of days its average resident spends working to pay taxes (click to enlarge):

The relationship between the two inputs is strong, but with a considerable amount of variance and a few outliers. Also, the data itself says nothing of causality. I speculate that richer states are more willing and able to pay higher taxes, although this simplistic chart alone could just as easily suggest (I think incorrectly) that rich states are prosperous because of their higher taxes.

Regardless, the numbers show Missouri’s standing when compared with neighboring states. Residing barely underneath the trend line, Missouri taxpayers make slightly more money than they pay in taxes when compared to all 50 states. Although we spend relatively more in taxes than neighbors Oklahoma and Tennessee, the chart shows healthier proportions than many other nearby states. Missourians should continue striving for a low-tax environment, perhaps looking no further than across state borders for role models.

Sources: Tax Foundation, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of the Census
Please note that all data is for 2007. Image created with Microsoft Excel.

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