If you blinked you could have missed yesterday’s elections in St. Louis County. Countywide, there were three elections, two of which were for filling vacant alderman positions in small cities. One of the elections, though, was interesting, as Creve Coeur voters were deciding on a sales tax increase to fund economic deleopment. The tax was defeated soundly. I don’t have much to say about the vote, other than it is good to know the sales tax will remain low the next time my wife goes to Lewis of London to buy baby gifts. If you want some very good discussion of the vote, I suggest you visit CreveCoeurVoter.com for some insightful commentary on the vote and surrounding issues.
The Missouri Free Suburb Project
Regular readers will recall the debates we have had over the recently repealed "Village Law," which made forming one’s own incorporated town much easier — too easy, in my opinion. To give a quick recap, I objected to the method used to pass the law in 2007, as well as the idea that anyone, whether well-intentioned or, more likely, a crackpot, could just go and form their own municipality to do whatever they wanted without regard to the previously existing laws established by the residents of that area. Supporters of the Village Law admitted to the problems with the process while whistling past it, and defended the rights of anyone who feels violated by their government to form a new government, in the proud tradition of prior Americans. I found those arguments to be either unrealistic or anachronistic, to put it mildly. Libertarians have many fine intellectual qualities, but respect for the hard work of democracy is not one of them (with the large exception of the Ron Paul movement).
Which gets me back to the point I was originally trying to make. Some of you may be aware of the Free State Project, in which dedicated Libertarians declared their intention to move en masse to New Hampshire in order to bound their voting power and principles together in one state. This would have been another exception to my above statement, if it had worked. Needless to say, far fewer people have actually followed through on their commitment to make the move to a new state than hoped. According to Wikipedia, 269 Libertarians have followed through on their promise to move to New Hampshire during the past two years, which was probably dwarfed over the same time period by the number of Massachusetts liberals who moved to southern New Hamphire for more standard reasons. Within New Hamphire itself, the Free Town Movement was born, with the idea of making Grafton, N.H., a libertarian paradise. This, too, has not succeeded yet, and was not helped by the involvement of lunatics who advocated legalizing cannibalism, among other things. (Third-party movements always have difficulty with extremism, almost by definition.)
OK, now I am finally at my original point. There is a perfectly legitimate and also viable compromise between the village law, respect for democracy, and libertarian principles. With that, I urge the libertarian community here in Missouri to consider the Missouri Free Suburb Project. (My family will happily remain in University City.) It would be EASY to take advantage of the number of small cities in Missouri, and in particular the smaller suburbs of our larger cities, to establish a voting bloc to create as much of a libertarian community as possible, via pure democracy. To do this, you need not convince tens of thousands of people from across the country to more to another state, you just need to convince 10 people in St. Louis County to move to Champ. Or 100 Ron Paul supporters to move to Mackenzie. In Jackson County, you just need to find 200 libertarians to move to Sibley. This isn’t quitting your job, picking up your entire life, and moving to a new state. This is staying within your own metro area.
Once a voting majority was established within an existing community, you could do a number of things to promote local libertarianism. You could get rid of planning and zoning laws, forbid the use of eminent domain, take the radical step of allowing pickup trucks to park overnight on the street (forbidden in many suburbs), completely privatize every service possible (such as trash collection), and contract with larger governments to provide other services (such as police protection, which probably would not be needed as you would be living in a utopia). If you kept your own police force, the elected officials could instruct the chief to de facto decriminalize certain things like drug possession, although legalization would probably not be valid.
This is really a great idea. All it takes is for one 1950s-style Irish-Catholic libertarian family of 13 to move to Champ (population 12), and you have control. You don’t need to convince yourself that someone in the Ozarks who just wants to build a casino is the next Daniel Boone in order to achieve true freedom. It’s right here for the taking.
Ask and You Shall Receive
Last week, I posted about rising fuel prices and an unsuccessful bill aimed at combating the cost. One provision of that legislation was to cut the government red tape surrounding the building of refineries, to make them easier to build. Well, it appears one town in South Dakota has heeded his suggestions and given its OK to proceed with building a new refinery by allowing for the proposed site to be rezoned. I would like to think that the town’s decision was based solely on my prior post, but I guess I can’t take credit for everything. Supporters of the rezoning cited "the once-in-a-lifetime economic opportunities the $10 billion project would bring" as their reason for supporting the project. Whatever the reason, this is one step in the right direction.
“The Clothes Make the Man”
"… Naked people have little or no influence on society." — Mark Twain
I don’t know much about the pros and cons of police using golf carts, but I was surprised by this article about what police are using them for in Pine Lawn. Giving people tickets because their pants are too low? And parents could end up in jail for three months if their 16-year-old-or-younger kids wear the offending style?
My first reaction to this was that maybe they have nothing else to worry about in Pine Lawn. The article mentions gunshots and a chase, though, so that can’t be right. And violent crime must scare businesses away at least as much as low pants. (The ostensible reason for the pants ordinance is to bring businesses to the city.)
If Pine Lawn wants to attract more economic activity, it should crack down on real crimes — not fashion crimes.
“There Are Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics”
The Springfield News-Leader published a letter to the editor from the Show-Me Institute this morning about payday lending.
In response to the reader comments that claim that the information in our letter was misleading, that was exactly our point. Just as it is misleading to quote payday lending rates in annualized terms (when most loans are paid off in just 14 days), so too it would be misleading to quote library late fees in annualized terms (when late fees are only $0.10 per day after 30 days).
In short, we believe that individuals — not the government — should dictate the terms at which people voluntarily choose to contract with one another.
Vice Lieutenants of the Board of Aldermen
There is a very enjoyable article today in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about a local expert on vice presidents, which is topical because Washington University will be hosting the vice presidential campaign debate later this year. I share Professor Joel Goldstein’s interest in this office, and other unusual political offices. I say "unusual" because the vice president — and, at the state level, the lieutenant governor — are the only elected offices that cross multiple branches of government. They are offices of both the executive branch in their capacity of being successor to the president or governor, representing the president or governor (in Missouri, assuming both officials are of the same party) at official events, and sitting on various boards or commissions as the representative of the executive branch.
They serve in the legislative branch in their capacity of president of the Senate at both the national and state level, at least here in Missouri (not every state does it the same way). Nowadays, the vice president or lieutenant governor only oversee the Senate on ceremonial occasions or perhaps for major votes where their tie-breaking authority might be called upon. However, it used to be common for them to do so. This even led to a lawsuit in the 1970s in Missouri when Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Phelps (who I had the pleasure of talking to just this past weekend) wanted to oversee the state Senate, and the large Democratic majority at the time did not want him involved, for obvious reasons. (The practice of vice presidents overseeing the daily operations of the Senate ended long before the 1970s.) The senators won the case, and I have no idea whether it was a good decision or a bad one, but it’s an interesting footnote for the office.
Some voters are still unaware that, unlike the president and vice president, Missouri’s lieutenant governors are not elected as part of a ticket. As such, while not common, it is also not unusual for the governor and the lieutenant governor to be of opposite parties. I like keeping the elections separate, although I would be happy to concede certain points for them to be elected on a ticket. As the 35th senator and the successor to the governor in the event of a tragedy (which happened in Missouri just a few years ago), I like that the lieutenant governor is independently elected. Voters can judge a candidate’s fitness for those capacities, and go from there.
I feel that the president of the Board of Alderman in the city of St. Louis sort of crosses branches as well. While those serving in this position primarily fall in the legislative branch, they are elected citywide and also serve in an executive sense on the Board of Estimate & Apportionment. I guess you could say that the attorney general and county prosecuting attorneys serve in both executive branch and the judicial branch, but I think they more accurately represent the executive branch (and the citizenry) before the judiciary, and are not a part of it.
Derailed
I’ve never ridden the St. Louis/Kansas City Amtrak train, but have heard plenty of negative things about it. This year, the General Assembly approved $8 million in operational cost subsidies for the beleaguered line. And if that weren’t enough, the state is also financing a $5 million “capital improvement” appropriation for track repairs. Quite a lot for a train route with only 67 percent on-time departures/arrivals.
But, apparently, that’s not enough. Amtrak notified MoDOT today that it faces a $400,000 budget shortfall, despite a $600,000 funding increase from last year.
I know nothing about railroad operations (unless you consider reading this to be a definitive guide), but it seems to me that if Amtrak ridership is declining while the profitability of freight transport is increasing, perhaps Amtrak might consider reducing the number of daily departures (currently four, about the same as the number of Southwest Airlines flights) and devoting that track time to freight lines.
Or Missourians can continue to contribute close to $15 million in scarce transportation revenue each year to support the running of empty trains (with snack bars!).
Efficiencies of Scale in Local Government
There is a very interesting post in The American Scene today about a proposal in New Jersey to mandate the consolidation of smaller towns. You can find additional commentary in The Atlantic. Please review the first graph, which shows significantly higher per-capita costs in the smallest towns, which then quickly level out as the cities get just a little bigger. I have found a very similar curve in comparisons of the spending levels in third-class Missouri counties, but that info has to wait until the release of my paper next month. (That is what is known in the biz as a "tease.")
I would never support manadatory consolidations, but there is no doubt that at the very smallest population levels, economies of scale can be achieved quickly as counties or cities grow somewhat, and also little doubt that those same economies of scale are quickly leveled off. It’s neat to see the graphs of New Jersey towns and Missouri counties look almost the same. As H.I. McDonough’s boss says to him in Raising Arizona, "It’s a crazy world."
Ed in ’08: Good Questions, Short on Answers
Ed in ’08 came to St. Louis this week to promote education reform. Follow the link to watch KTVI interview Adam Thibault about the campaign’s goals.
I liked the mention of merit pay and rewarding teacher quality. But the next suggestion — that we create more positions for teachers like "mentors" and "leaders" — doesn’t seem like it could transform the profession as radically as Ed in ’08 hopes. Some schools already have programs that allow teachers to mentor each other, which is nice but hardly innovative policy. This would be a good time to bring up charter schools, tuition tax credits, or another policy that would allow families to choose schools and allow schools to compete, but once again Ed in ’08 lets the opportunity slip.
Ed in ’08 in asking, "How do we improve American education?" and doing a good job of calling attention to this issue. Sadly, the conversation doesn’t go very far because the policy change it throws out for discussion are too cautious. If this were a multiple-choice test, I’d have to answer, "None of the above."
