Tabarrok on Gun Buybacks

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Dave Stokes has blogged about the gun buyback programs that St. Louis periodically tries. Now Cafe Hayek links to an op-ed by Alex Tabarrok (of Marginal Revolution fame) on the same topic. He explains why gun buybacks don’t deter crime or rid the streets of weapons:

Imagine that instead of guns, the Oakland police decided, for whatever strange reason, to buy back sneakers. The idea of a gun buyback is to reduce the supply of guns in Oakland. Do you think that a sneaker buyback program would reduce the number of people wearing sneakers in Oakland? Of course not.

All that would happen is that people would reach into the back of their closet and sell the police a bunch of old, tired, stinky sneakers.

Gun buybacks won’t reduce the number of guns in Oakland. In fact, buybacks may increase the number of guns in Oakland.

He goes on to explain that gun buyback program make buying new guns more attractive. Once people are done with the gun, they can get some of their money back. So they’ll be more eager to buy guns in the first place. It’s like college textbook buybacks. Students are more willing to buy textbooks if they can sell the books back to the bookstore at the end of the semester.

Just something to keep in mind the next time St. Louis tries it.

Update on the Initiative Process

Posted on by Justin Hauke

The initiative bill Dave Roland commented on several weeks ago has been “perfected” in the House and is nearing passage. Apparently its Senate counterpart is also on the fast track for passage.

Some proponents of direct democracy see the initiative process as an additional check on legislative power. The argument being that if a majority of citizens aren’t happy with the laws their legislature is enacting, they can ban together to pass laws themselves instead — a kind of “citizen’s arrest,” if you will.

I tend to be more cynical and find myself (shockingly) agreeing with Dave Stokes on the topic. The initiative process tends to encourage interest-group politics. If a small group of committed people band together, they can pass some pretty stupid laws. And the current legislation under consideration does nothing to eliminate the initiative process or curtail "democracy."

But maybe democracy’s just a sham, anyway.

New Study Shows Role for Private Investment in Missouri Transportation

Posted on by Eric D. Dixon

A new study, jointly produced by the Show-Me Institute and the Reason Foundation, examines the relatively new funding paradigm of public-private partnerships and how such arrangements may benefit Missouri’s public transportation infrastructure. The study provides an overview of the types of public-private partnerships that can be utilized for transportation projects, including their benefits and best practices, and responses to common concerns. It also explores how public-private partnerships can be used not only to upgrade, modernize, and expand Missouri’s road and bridge network, but also to improve the delivery of transit services.

As cars have become more efficient, the fuel taxes used to fund the state’s highways have leveled off — but the transportation needs of the state have not. Other states have looked to the private sector to provide transportation infrastructure, as a means of augmenting gas taxes. This new study, titled "Missouri’s Changing Transportation Paradigm," takes a detailed look at the transportation issues that Missouri will face in the future, and surveys the ways in which public-private partnerships have been used as a tool to help solve similar problems elsewhere.

The study’s authors — David Stokes, a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, Leonard Gilroy, the director of government reform at the Reason Foundation, and Samuel Staley, Ph.D., the director of urban growth and land use policy at the Reason Foundation — outline the many benefits of public-private partnerships. When undertaken properly, these benefits may include: delivery of tomorrow’s infrastructure today, cost savings, greater access to capital, greater efficiency, performance of quality improvements, changing the incentive structure, enhancing risk management, spurring innovation, and increased flexibility.

The full study is a bit of a lengthy read, as such studies go, so of course we’ve produced a four-page policy briefing that condenses the study’s arguments and analysis into a more easily digestible format.

Gateway to 21st Century Education

Posted on by Justin Hauke

I know what you’re thinking: "Enough, Justin, we’re sick of you already." I know, but this is the last post for today, I promise.

I attended a St. Louis Regional Education Roundtable discussion this morning, about Missouri charter schools. Although most of the discussion was rather pedantic, focused on the nuts and bolts of charter school accountability, a couple of interesting statistics were discussed that I feel compelled to share with you all.

First, a study by the Friedman Foundation, focusing on the cost of failing to reform Missouri’s public education, has an interesting take on the numbers. The author calculates the annual tax revenue that is lost from Missouri high school dropouts whose earnings are precipitously lower than they would be if they had become high school graduates. For example, the median adjusted gross income of a high school graduate in Missouri is $24,996, compared to $15,373 for a high school dropout. Multiplied by the number of high school dropouts, that difference results in lost annual tax revenues ranging from $158?177 million.

The other quick statistic is more anecdotal than a hard fact. One of the panelists at today’s discussion, Cheri Shannon, is the superintendent of University Academy, a charter school in Kansas City. Commenting on the operating efficiency of charter schools, she explained that adopting a new textbook or curriculum in a public school takes five years on average (from her experience as a public school teacher/administrator). In a charter school, though, because of greater operating efficiency, a new curriculum can be adopted in less than one semester if the current model isn’t working.

Food for thought.

Not Really Our Issue Area …

Posted on by Justin Hauke

But DailyTech reports today that all four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, and RSS) are showing the largest one-year worldwide temperature drop in history.

New research suggests that solar output has a much larger impact on global temperatures than previously thought. Not that one year of data discredits global warming enthusiasts, but if these records can be trusted, the past year’s temperature drop is enough to wipe out nearly 100 years of warming “trends.”

Graph below.

Taxes Matter

Posted on by Justin Hauke

Faced with a record budget surplus this year (on the order of $14.8 billion U.S.), the territory of Hong Kong announced that it will immediately cut or reduce personal and corporate income tax rates.

What’s amazing is how low Hong Kong’s taxes already are. The corporate income tax rate in Hong Kong is currently 17.5 percent, while the highest marginal personal income tax rate is 20 percent. Compare that to the United States’ 35-percent corporate tax rate, the highest in the world among industrialized nations, and top marginal income tax bracket of 35 percent.

Now consider the Missouri case. Missouri imposes an additional 6.25-percent corporate income tax. That means the total corporate tax burden in Missouri is 41.25 percent. And if you happen to be in St. Louis or Kansas City, the tax bill will be 42.25 percent.

Ask yourself this. If you’re an international corporation, where would you choose to open your doors: Missouri or Hong Kong?

Even among the individual states, would you rather open a new factory in Texas (with no corporate or personal income tax) or Missouri?

These are pretty simple answers. This is how we can bring quality jobs to Missouri.

Put on the Red Light (Camera)

Posted on by Nicholas Loyal

The city of Arnold (which has graced this forum before for alternate reasons) is now the first municipality in Missouri to face a federal lawsuit regarding the legality of the red-light cameras that it has installed at certain busy intersections. The lawsuit, according to an article in the Post-Dispatch, questions the constitutionality of the cameras based on the presumption of guilt that they impose on the owners of automobiles that are photographed:

The ordinance forces you to come forward and "basically declare your
innocence," says Washington University law school professor Peter Joy, who reviewed the suit at the request of the Post-Dispatch.

"In essence, it sort of compels you to finger your wife or child or someone else you loaned the car to," he said.

Additionally, the plaintiff in the suit has alleged that the city of Arnold has gone as far as committing mail fraud by attempting to extort money from innocent citizens victimized by the cameras.

With red-light cameras spreading as a method of traffic control (the attorney for the plaintiff indicated that he may be interested in expanding the lawsuit to include more of the 20 communities in Missouri and Illinois that use red-light cameras) it will be interesting to track the progress of this case on a federal level. In line with some opinions expressed here before, the plaintiffs are to be commended for attempting to highlight an injustice that Missouri municipalities were presumably planning on expanding until someone called them on it, but it will be interesting to see if their line of reasoning stands up inside the Eagleton.

Either way, it gives me some ammunition with which to complain the next time I get angry at the "No Right on Red" sign at Delmar and Skinker.

Alternative Teacher Certification

Posted on by Sarah Brodsky

Thanks, Combest, for linking to an article about this excellent legislation:

Sen. Luann Ridgeway, R-Smithville, sponsored a bill to give the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence the authority to certify professional people looking for careers in education in Missouri. […]

Through ABCTE, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., and funded through federal grants, people can obtain a teaching certificate without having a bachelor’s degree in education.

This alternative certification program could help relieve teacher shortages at the middle-school and high-school levels. (ABCTE doesn’t certify elementary or special-education teachers.) That would be a big help to the districts that currently struggle to fill math and science positions.

This might not be as big as the initiative in California, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Don’t Know Much About History

Posted on by Justin Hauke

USA Today has a new poll out detailing today’s sad state of educational affairs.

Educators have proudly pointed out that while U.S. math and science scores have continued to slide, a record number of students are taking and excelling in college-level advanced placement history and literature courses. The defense is that students are at least performing well in these critical subject.

Yet according to the USA Today poll of 1,200 17-year old students:

  • 43% knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900.
  • 52% could identify the theme of 1984.
  • 51% knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.

In all, students earned a C in history and an F in literature.

How can fewer than half of graduating seniors not be able to pinpoint a 50-year window in which the Civil War was fought? That is absolutely inexcusable.

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