The combined course list shows courses available on a wide range of topics including foreign language, different types of science and even audio and visual production classes. Some of the classes are even available at the AP (Advanced Placement) level. The education providers include Mizzou, K-12, Edison Learning, and others.

Show-Me Institute analysts have written extensively about the need for course access in Missouri, and seeing it signed into law was exciting. Although DESE did not produce the list of approved providers and courses as promised at the end of 2018, we’re glad to see that it is finally available on the Missouri Course Access and Virtual School Program (MOCAP) website.  

The law also requires districts to inform parents and students about MOCAP, but not all districts are compliant yet. For example, the North Kansas City School District has a MOCAP page on its website, but the Adair County R-I School District does not. As DESE is implementing course access, districts should be informing their students about the opportunity.

Not every student has access to opportunities like AP or foreign language classes in their home district. Now, students should be able to take the classes they need to build their future without being constrained by the offerings of their local school district. As the 2019-2020 school year approaches, we look forward to seeing students enroll in MOCAP classes as they customize their education and prepare for the future.

The post Course Access is Finally Available appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more?

More than 40 years after that song was released, the state of Connecticut is learning a lesson from  policies that heavily tax the rich. According to the Associated Press:

New figures released last week show tax revenue from the state’s top 100 highest-paying taxpayers declined 45 percent from 2015 to 2016. The drop adds up to a $200 million revenue loss for the state…

This latest drop in tax revenues paid by the wealthy, a problem for the past several years, has exacerbated Connecticut’s current budget woes. The projected deficit for the new fiscal year beginning July 1 has now jumped from about $1.7 billion to $2.3 billion, while the deficit predicted for the second year of the state’s two-year budget is now about $2.7 billion. The state’s main spending account, the general fund, is roughly about $18 billion annually.

As the headquarters of several hedge funds, Connecticut is especially sensitive to changes in that industry. Recent fund failures have meant that investors have sought to protect themselves from risk, meaning less profit and a double whammy for the Nutmeg State.

The commissioner for the state’s Department of Revenue Services conceded to the AP that “part of revenue decline can also be attributed to ‘a handful’ of wealthy individuals who moved to more tax-friendly states.” Imagine that. If your state levies higher taxes on the wealthy than other states do, the wealthy leave. The AP story also cites a similar example in New Jersey last year.

Soak-the-rich tax policies may seem great on bumper stickers and in song lyrics, but they are no way to run an economy. As we have written, in Missouri and elsewhere governments must compete against one another. Rather than penalize producers to cover for profligate spending, government should only tax what is needed to provide basic services effectively and efficiently.

To their credit, even Ten Years After wasn’t convinced of the merits of their proposal, ending with the refrain,

I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you

The post What’s the Matter with Connecticut? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As the Associated Press reports, Missouri State Parks is planning to open a $52 million facility in Shannon County, and the parks department would like to provide canoe-rentals to park goers. The department purchased a piece of property formerly known as Camp Zoe. The campground was seized by the DEA in 2012 and later sold by the Department of Natural Resources to Missouri State Parks for $640,000.

Launching canoes into the river is not as simple as buying a piece of land at an auction. Businesses must have a permit for each canoe, and the number of canoes is limited. Therefore, the parks department will either have to purchase an existing canoe company and take over the company’s permits or attempt to wrestle permits away from an existing company. In either scenario, the government is poised to crowd out private enterprise with the financial backing of state taxpayers.

It is quite possible that the family-owned canoe rental place you love (Mine is Windy’s) could be put out of business by the good intentions of public servants. While parks and recreation may seem like a natural place for the state to offer services, it is important to realize that when the state takes on a larger role providing recreational activities, it crowds out private businesses that are already providing these services.

The post Missouri State Parks Floating the Idea of Crowding Out Private Enterprise appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Education Week has a detailed cheat sheet on the ins and outs of the bill, but the Associated Press’s summary cuts to the core of the issue, “The bill would return to the states the authority to decide how to use students' test performance in assessing teachers and schools, and it would end federal efforts to encourage academic standards such as Common Core.”

I want to underscore just how important this is. In education, as in most policy areas, federal involvement is a one-way ratchet. Federal influence in education has been on the rise since the days of Sputnik, accelerated by President Johnson as part of the War on Poverty, and brought to its apex by No Child Left Behind. This looks to be the first time that trend has been reversed.

The tide is turning because people across the country and across the political spectrum have realized that the federal government is in a terrible place to try and dictate education policy. We have 100,000 schools in 14,000 school districts spread all across our vast and diverse nation. Trying to centrally determine how to hold schools accountable is simply too great a challenge. Those decisions are much better made by individuals closer to children and the communities where they live.

The bill still has to pass the Senate and be signed by the President, but all indicators point to that happening relatively soon. If and when it does, Missouri will have much more control over its educational future, and the hard work of creating a world-class education system without Uncle Sam breathing down our neck can begin.

The post No Child Left Behind Has One Foot in the Grave appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri is submitting a new teacher equity plan to the Department of Education. As the Associated Press reports, the plan touches on the unequal distribution of experienced teachers within urban and rural school districts. States must submit updated plans to continue receiving waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Within a draft of Missouri’s Educator Equity Plan, DESE writes, “According to federal guidance, less effective teachers are those who are inexperienced, unqualified, or out of field.” Later in the plan, the department presents dozens of ideas about how to recruit effective teachers to rural, poor communities.

Though DESE highlights a few academic studies, it neglects research with alternate findings especially in relation to experience and education versus student achievement. This—combined with the listed stakeholders (National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Missouri State Teachers Association, etc.) who played a role in giving the department recommendations—produced several unsurprising potential strategies.

• Increased salary
• Smaller class size
• Entry-level screening tools
• Content knowledge and pedagogical skills assessment

None of the listed strategies are “proven” to increase academic achievement. Still, the state continues to draw away from local policies in favor of controversial state and federal mandates.

This is not to say that recruiting teachers to rural communities isn’t a problem; one study found that 75 percent of teachers in urban areas stay in their hometown, while only 43 percent of rural teachers remain. There are, however, more creative solutions to ensure students in rural communities receive a quality education. Here are a few:

• Expand educational opportunity through virtual learning (DESE lists this one, Bravo!).
• Eliminate state mandates that encourage the use of salary schedules, which judge teachers based on experience and education. A competitive salary early on for science and math teachers may drive more qualified teachers to the profession.
• Eliminate arduous certification requirements. The Bering Strait School District in Alaska has 15 schools covering more than 80,000 square miles, many of which must be reached by airplane. The Alaska State Department of Education has recently given waivers to school districts, allowing them to recruit teachers from out of field. “It’s really been handy. Just recently, we hired a language arts teacher with no background, but he’s a good teacher, he’s what we look for,” a Bering Strait personnel staff member told me.
• Allow school districts to operate like businesses—let administrators make personnel decisions that make the most sense to the students within the school district.

The post Missouri’s Teacher Equity Plan Draft Misses the Mark appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A Cincinnati streetcar project, embroiled in controversy in recent years over cost overruns and management, faces an uncertain future after Tuesday’s election ushered in a new mayor who vowed to halt the project that has tied up $148 million of city funds.

Mayor-elect John Cranley, a Democrat who ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility that included stopping the project, won about 58% of the votes tallied, according to unofficial results from the Hamilton County Board of Elections. He beat out current Vice-Mayor Roxanne Qualls, also a Democrat, who supported the project.

Since then, things have become more, well, political. The Associated Press reports that the outgoing city council is trying to erect roadblocks to keep the new council from exercising its power to stop the project.

How long will it be before Kansas City, awash with cost overruns and mismanagement, regrets forcing the streetcar on taxpayers in “the single-most undemocratic election in Kansas City since the Pendergast era?” When Ebeneezer Scrooge looked upon the headstone that the third ghost showed to him, he proclaimed:

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.”

Let’s hope Kansas City’s leaders depart from the current course, lest we find ourselves in Cincinnati’s position.

The post Kansas City’s Ghost Of Streetcars Yet To Come appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

. . . its [Southwest’s] costs would spike under a $1.2 billion proposal for replacing the current three-terminal configuration at Kansas City International Airport with a single terminal . . . the single-terminal proposal would triple its costs . . .

And that:

. . . the $1.2 billion proposal would be a disincentive for airlines to service Kansas City . . . the airline is confident it [Kansas City Airport] could come up with something for the community at a lower cost.

Southwest Airlines handles 40 percent of the commercial flights (almost 2 million passengers in 2012) out of Kansas City, and the Aviation Department cannot take its opinion lightly. We are with Southwest in hoping that planners for Kansas City International Airport can come up with a more cost-effective plan.

The post Southwest Says MCI Terminal Plan is Too Expensive appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

It seems the governor wants as many people to know about, and feel, these cutbacks as possible. However, the budget facts paint a far less dire picture than the one the governor has sketched out, and to which he is presumably reacting. As the Associated Press‘s David Lieb noted:

. . . Nixon announced more than $400 million of spending restrictions for education, building projects and other government services, even though Missouri began its fiscal year July 1 with a cash balance of around $450 million.

The state apparently has more money in the bank than Nixon has set aside from the budget to supposedly avert a budget deficit. And that’s before we even start talking about the BBTRA, which the governor claims is the driving factor behind his cutbacks. Indeed, with all impacts on the budget included, the fiscal note on the cost of the BBTRA suggests the tax cut would decrease state revenue by about $200 million in 2014 — which is far short of the $400 million the governor withheld.

The state’s education system and other programs are the ones that get hit hard because of the withholding, for seemingly no good reason. The money in the bank doesn’t justify it, and the price tag of the tax cut doesn’t justify it. I’m not so sure Missouri’s schools appreciate their funding being held hostage in the governor’s fight with the legislature, especially when the facts don’t justify the cutbacks.

The post Budget Action In Search Of A Crisis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Nixon, a Democrat, has not publicly commented about the fee-increasing bills. But he already has vetoed the Republican-backed bill that would have gradually cut Missouri’s income taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Republicans could try to override that veto. But if they fail, and Nixon accepts the fee increases, the result of the 2013 session could be one that few Republicans envisioned: A government that takes more, not less, money from its citizens.

Ensuring that, where reasonable, the costs of government services are associated with the users of the services is typically a laudable objective. Not every cost of every state service should be distributed evenly to all taxpayers. Yet, if the net effect of a year’s legislation is not just higher state fees but higher costs to taxpayers generally, then we are headed in precisely the wrong public policy direction.

And that’s where things stand today; if the tax cut veto is not overridden and the fees become law, that may end up being what the legislature “achieved” in 2013. Legislators who supported the fee increases but opposed, and may oppose again, the tax cut, may have some explaining to do back in their districts. Stay tuned.

The post With Fee Hikes Pending And A Tax Cut Vetoed, Could The 2013 Legislature End Up…Raising Your Taxes? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We provide Residential Development Consulting services to both non-profit and for-profit organizations. We provide expertise in structuring developments utilizing a variety of public and private resources, including federal CDBG and HOME funds; tax-exempt bond financing; and low income housing tax credit, historic tax credit and new markets tax credit transactions.

That probably should have come up at least in the author’s bio. Unfortunately, it did not.

While we are discussing the RHCDA’s portfolio of tax credit expertise, it should be noted that the Associated Press made this revelation about the New Markets tax credit program just this weekend (emphasis mine):

Missouri has authorized more than $120 million of tax credits through a program intended to entice wealthy investors to pour money into businesses in low-income areas, but the initiative has yet to produce even half the jobs that were anticipated, according to state figures provided to The Associated Press….

At the request of the AP, the state Department of Economic Development compiled a spreadsheet documenting every New Markets tax credit that has been authorized. The 9,679 “anticipated jobs” associated with the tax credits far exceeds the 823 “actual new jobs” and 3,141 “jobs retained” under the program, though those numbers could continue to rise.

This “tax credit job-shortfall” storyline is not unique. Indeed, the AP report on the New Markets program follows earlier, similar revelations about the Quality Jobs tax credit program, which I testified about earlier this year. In the case of the Quality Jobs program, 45,000 jobs were promised; according to state records, only about 7,000 jobs were created in reality. As I said then (emphasis mine):

In practice, there is no particular consequence to the state and its public officials claiming that new jobs will be coming, even if the jobs never materialize. That may explain the difference between the number of jobs state officials promise when a tax credit project is announced and the number of jobs actually created when the project winds down. To some officials, big tax credit promises look better than small tax credit promises, even if those promises do not pan out.

The same can be said of the consultants who go to bat for these credits. Acree even has the audacity to claim that the historic preservation tax credit is “Missouri’s most useful economy-boosting program.” A program that returns 23 cents on the dollar is our “most useful economy-boosting program”?! Does this suggestion horrify anyone else?

I have a better idea: Cut taxes with the money instead and let taxpayers invest their money themselves in their own businesses. Better yet, eliminate a tax or two instead of underwriting the projects of the politically well-connected. Missouri’s most useful economy-boosting program is the hard work and innovation of its taxpayers, not some bloated, special-interest government handout.

As story after tax credit story bears out, tax credit proponents/consultants have a terrible track record of substantive, sustainable, and enduring successes. The historic preservation tax credit is a central player in this ongoing, budget-busting, decade-long state development debacle. Suffice to say, I am looking forward to the findings of the state audit of the program, due to come out later this year.

The post Nota Bene: Historic Preservation Tax Credit ‘Consultant’ Supports Historic Preservation Tax Credit appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Officials in about 30 states that are home to more than 25 million uninsured residents remain either defiant or undecided about implementing Obama’s Medicaid expansion, according to an Associated Press survey.

In other words? A majority of states have not yet implemented the Medicaid expansion, and many are vehemently rejecting it. The Missouri Legislature has repeatedly rejected expansion proposals, for good reason: The “Affordable Care Act” is patently unaffordable, and it seems that most states — Missouri included — are not exactly chomping at the bit to bring many of the law’s burdensome provisions back home.

Inevitable? Far from it.

The post Reminder: A Strong Majority Of States ‘Remain Either Defiant Or Undecided’ About Expanding Medicaid appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The demolition of the Regency Hotel site. Photo by Timmy Huynh of the Columbia Missourian.

Since 2005, the City of Columbia has entered into the business of subsidizing development in a big way. The Columbia City Council approved its first Tax Increment Financing (TIF) project in 2009 and is considering another one.

In 2010, the city actually bought property for $3 million in order to lease it to IBM for $1 (yes, just a dollar) for at least 10 years. In fall 2011, the Columbia Missourian reported that IBM had hired just 101 full-time employees, far short of the 800 jobs promised.

It may not be a tax subsidy, but it is certainly a failed bet: The city has also built a very expensive parking garage that garishly lights up downtown Columbia in the evenings. The Missourian has reported that it costs more than $3,000 each month to keep the lights on in that garage. Of course, the cost of the parking lot is $21 million, and its parking revenue appears to have been paltry.

To this former Columbia resident, the city’s development bets seem contrived. The City Council, hoping for a better hotel, approved a large TIF for the Regency Hotel site on Broadway (demolition site pictured above). In my humble opinion, if the replacement of any hotel in Columbia could merit subsidy, I would nominate the Arrow Head Motel, which looks a little worse for the wear.

Now, the Columbia City Council is moving aggressively forward to allow for the awarding of Enhanced Enterprise Zone (EEZ) subsidies. The City Council voted 7-0 on Monday to set up an EEZ board, the first step needed to hand out EEZ development subsidies, despite the fact that many people showed up to protest that move.

What, exactly, is wrong with Columbia? The unemployment rate in the Columbia metropolitan statistical area is lower than the rest of Missouri. Columbia has a large college campus that guarantees a certain level of sales tax revenue and occupied apartments. It hosts football games that draw even more commercial activity to the city.

And yet, Columbia officials argue that a large swath of their downtown should be considered “blighted” and that the city needs development subsidies.

I wonder, to what success are those officials looking? I have pointed out before (in a Columbia newspaper) that TIF has a very poor track record on both sides of the state when it comes to creating long-term growth.

The Wall Street Journal just highlighted Kansas City’s bad development bets. The Saint Louis area’s use of development incentives has been so inefficient that we have spent more than $370,000 per job created. And the Associated Press just reported that the Kansas City development incentive border war has resulted in $750 million in incentives spent to move jobs across state lines.

Development subsidies that taxpayers fund are no way to provide long-term economic growth. But if Columbia’s city officials are itching to get into the development game, they should do so with their own money, and on their own time.

The post What Is The Matter With Columbia? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

According to the AP, Missouri and Kansas have committed more than $750 million in tax incentives and bonds to lure companies across the state line. That amount of taxpayer money is incredible to promise away in just five years. Perhaps even more incredible is that the former head of the Missouri Department of Economic Development (DED) openly told the AP:

You get to a point where you have to say we are wasting taxpayer money.

For once, I agree with someone associated with the DED. It is certainly nice for elected officials to be able to issue a press release and claim to have created jobs and investment. But that practice is a raw deal for taxpayers. Research has shown that state tax credits have a lousy track record of delivering on promises. And, Missouri taxpayers support this foolish practice at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in state tax credits.

Though he has promised in the past to try and rein in tax credits, our governor does not seem to quite get it. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon told the AP:

I’m going to compete for jobs for our state, I’m not backing up on that. But I think that the real long-term solution is how do we get more out of the region as far as joint economic impact?

Here is an idea: If a company wants to leave Missouri because Kansas has promised it a ridiculous amount of money, like $100,000 per job, let it go. That is a poor use of taxpayer dollars, and when a company moves a few miles, its employees frequently stay where they put. Those employees will continue to own homes, shop, and pay taxes in Missouri.

There are better ways to make our state competitive. Let’s lower the corporate income tax. Why not reduce the state income tax?

The way to encourage economic growth throughout the state is to provide tax relief to all Missourians, instead of participating in a tax incentive game that helps politicians earn political points.

The post Let Kansas Make Foolish Development Bets; We Have Better Things To Do appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Sure, the article conceded, trolleys had been falling out of favor
with the public for years, but “[n]ow gas prices, air pollutants and
spiffy promotional campaigns are making people more aware of the
trolley as mass transit.” One trolley company even said that at least
10 cities were “studying or planning or requesting funding for new
light rail vehicles.” On that list: Kansas City.

Sounds like trolleys are the fresh, happening thing these days when
it comes to municipal development, except for one important thing:
The article quoted here is from 1975. As long-time residents can tell
you, Kansas City does not have a streetcar today, and it’s hard to
argue that streetcars made a substantive “comeback” in the 1970s,
or since.

But will Kansas City soon bring streetcars back to its Main Street?

Maybe, if the city has its way. Last month, the Parking and
Transportation Commission and the Kansas City Council approved
a plan to install $100 million worth of trolley lines following a 2-
mile route running from the River Market to Crown Center.

That’s $50 million per mile; a ludicrous expense, and that’s in the
context of a city that has seen its share of ridiculous rail proposals
over the years.

Indeed, the idea of bringing rail lines in one form or another has
been kicked around exhaustively for the last two decades, and there
are, in fact, two competing passenger rail proposals in Kansas City:
the Main Street trolley and, no joke, yet another $1 billion-plus rail
project that perpetual rail proponent Clay Chastain has proposed.

But even Chastain, the name and face behind KC rail for years, won’t
rally behind a trolley project.

“You’re not going to take a streetcar to the airport,” Chastain told The
Kansas City Star. “This is not the major response we need to build a
world-class transit system.”

When Clay Chastain says your project is impractical, it just might be
impractical.

Missing in all of the streetcar talk is any substantive discussion of why
these projects are necessary, or even desirable, especially in today’s
economic circumstances. Kansas City and other cities removed their
trolley lines decades ago in no small part because trolleys were
impractical for their times, and the impracticality problems of trolleys
remain to this day. The Parking and Transportation Commission’s own
report puts the expense of trolleys at five times what a comparable bus
costs, and that’s assuming there are no cost overruns in the trolley line’s
construction.

But let’s break this municipal issue down to its most salient and important
question: Is a trolley project really the best use of already-depleted
taxpayer dollars? The money Kansas City would spend on these projects
couldn’t be spent on other pressing municipal matters. What would the
city forgo if it rebuilds rail lines that were torn out long ago?

In this economy, Kansas City needs… trolleys?

Really?

Patrick Ishmael is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, which
promotes market solutions for Missouri Public Policy.

The post A Streetcar Too Far: Vanity Rail Lines Are a Waste of Kansas City Tax Dollars appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The city has issued an average of $35.4 million in permits per month since the tornado. Before the tornado, the city averaged just over $2.1 million a month in building permits.

Despite this evidence of a robust private market, the Missouri Housing Development Commission has:

. . . committed about $100 million in tax credits and loans over the coming decade to spark the construction of low-to-moderate income rental units and single-family, owner-occupied homes in the Joplin area.

[A] Sept. 30 revision of the federal wage rules significantly increased those amounts. For example, the federal prevailing wage for a carpenter in the Joplin area rose from $7.98 an hour to $21.47 an hour plus $12.65 in benefits. The federal prevailing wage for a roofer in the Joplin area rose from $7.25 an hour, which matches the general federal minimum wage, to $21.30 an hour plus $8.08 in benefits.

The post Special Interests Inhibiting Joplin’s Recovery? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In what now appears to be standard operating procedure, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon visited Kirksville to announce the loan and to tout the promised jobs. His office also issued a press release, stating that “with Action Fund loans, high-tech companies like Wi-Fi Sensors can create quality jobs and help jump-start our economy.”

Furthermore, according to the governor’s press release:

The loan will allow Wi-Fi Sensors to expand its operation in Missouri. Under the terms of the loan, the company guarantees the creation of 40 new jobs and new investment of $4,069,000. While guaranteeing a minimum of 40 new jobs, Wi-Fi Sensors representatives believe they may create as many as 100 new jobs through this expansion.

Sadly, the TV station visited the Wi-Fi property on Monday, and found nobody. According to its report, Wi-Fi missed its first payment to the state in November 2010.

This sounds similar to the situation in Moberly. As you’ve read on our blog, the sucralose production company, Mamtek, promised more than 600 jobs and millions in investment to the city. The state promised millions in tax credits, and the city of Moberly backed $39 million in bonds for the projects.

And yet, Mamtek recently failed to make a debt payment, leaving the city on the hook for the money, and had not created the promised jobs.

Missouri senators are planning to investigate Mamtek, according to the Associated Press. Specifically, they want to investigate the DED’s role in the project.

But our state senators shouldn’t assume that Mamtek is an isolated failure. Tax incentives frequently fail to produce the jobs promised, and there have been many state audits and incidents suggesting that all is not right at the DED. Wi-Fi Sensors looks like the latest example.

We don’t have to look too far into the past to see other failures and near failures. Late last year, a company in Cape Girardeau promised 135 new jobs — if the state would kick in about $2 million in tax credits. It turns out that the head of that company was convicted of passing more than $90,000 in bad checks.

Policy Analyst Christine Harbin wondered at the time whether she should spend her time at the Show-Me Institute running tax credit recipients’ names through the Missouri courts database to see if she found any other matches.

Then, of course, earlier this year the DED awarded millions to a company for a development project that the courts had ruled as ineligible.

Don’t even get me started on the state auditor findings that the DED was inflating business creation and investment numbers reported for certain tax credit programs.

Like Chrissy, the Wi-Fi Sensors case has me tempted to go through the governor’s press releases touting job creation to see which projects are currently operational. Sadly, for Missouri taxpayers, the Mamtek and Wi-Fi failures suggest several others may have failed.

The post Just How Many Mamteks Are There? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The bill would prevent consumers from suing the food industry for weight gain, obesity and health problems caused by long-term consumption of fattening foods and non-alcoholic drinks such as soda.

In general, I believe that the less government does, the better. However, encouraging tort reform is not inconsistent with a free-market philosophy (we discuss the issue often on Show-Me Daily), and interpreting this policy as simply another government restriction is an oversimplification. Reducing frivolous lawsuits will have positive consequences for companies and their consumers.

One possible benefit of this policy is that it will encourage people to take ownership over their own health, encouraging personal responsibility and limiting government dependence — things that Free Marketeers like me support (e.g., health savings accounts, limiting the welfare state, etc). Americans tend to blame their weight problems on everyone except themselves, but this policy would limit their ability to blame food companies. As I always say, personal responsibility is the best medicine. As one state legislator puts it:

“Let’s say I choose to eat 100 bananas and my stomach ruptures,” said Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, a Glencoe Republican. “That’s not the banana growers’ fault.”

It’s also possible that more businesses will locate to the state because they will no longer fear a barrage of frivolous lawsuits. Frivolous lawsuits increase the cost of doing business in the state, which discourages companies from locating there.

Additionally, perhaps this policy would result in lower food costs, much like medical malpractice reform leads to lower health costs. In the health care industry, medical providers practice defensive medicine; I wonder if an equivalent practice exists in the fast food industry?

Lawmakers in Missouri would be wise to watch how Minnesota fares under this policy, if and when it is enacted. As long as the measure doesn’t restrict consumers from suing food companies when they incur actual harm (e.g., health code violations), it will likely benefit the state.

The post I’ll Have a Cheeseburger With Fries – Hold the Lawsuit appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The new policy would increase transparency in the state budget, which is clearly lacking. Taxpayers are picking up the cost of this travel, so the sheer amount of this line item should not be hidden from them. If the costs of these trips are diffused across the budgets of multiple government agencies, taxpayers will not have a clear picture of the real costs of Gov. Nixon’s travel. What good does the Missouri Accountability Portal provide if it is so disorganized?

According to Lieb’s article:

Nixon often bills a specific agency for his flights. But he sometimes splits his travel cost among about a dozen state offices when the trips have no direct connection to specific agencies, such as his attendance at sporting events.

Does anybody seriously believe that Gov. Nixon’s attendance at a sporting event generates an increase in economic output for the state economy? Additionally, when the governor travels around the state to announce a handful of jobs here and there, doesn’t that travel expenditure partly negate the ostensible benefit of the jobs?

Even though the state government faces a budget shortfall, and even though Nixon has made cuts in other agencies, he increases his own travel budget. If the governor were serious about promoting fiscal responsibility, he would take measures to reduce these expenditures, but he doesn’t. The fiscally responsible thing to do would be to seek out cheaper substitutes, such as videoconferencing, or to cease holding multiple ceremonies throughout the state for a single project.

Missourians would be better off if they weren’t picking up the cost of Nixon’s trips. These expenditures decrease the funds available in agency budgets by unexpected amounts, which means that the governor’s travel comes at the expense of other programs. If the travel expenditures were reduced, Missourians could keep a greater proportion of their earnings.

The post Gov. Nixon’s Sky-High Travel Expenditures appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Meth incidents, I should note, are a count of the number of times that meth labs, dumpsites, or even meth production equipment is seized. The statistic is not, as I once naïvely thought, a count of meth lab explosions, or even labs themselves. The AP’s analysis does not delve into which types of “incidents” are on the rise, just that the total is up. Additionally, an uptick in meth lab incidents could just be an effect of law enforcement cracking down on meth production more effectively. So, already, we should approach the AP analysis with skepticism.

A few years ago, a number of states, including Missouri, limited the purchase of pseudoephedrine, restricted where it could be sold, and began to track those who purchased the drug. The AP says that those restrictions have created a black market trade in pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine.

From the AP:

An Associated Press review of federal data shows that the lure of such easy money has drawn thousands of new people into the methamphetamine underworld over the last few years.

“It’s almost like a sub-criminal culture,” said Gary Boggs, an agent at the Drug Enforcement Administration. “You’ll see them with a GPS unit set up in a van with a list of every single pharmacy or retail outlet. They’ll spend the entire week going store to store and buy to the limit.”

Well, don’t count me among the shocked. After all, it’s pretty common knowledge that regulation and restriction can create all sorts of black markets of perfectly banal commodities, such as “food, cookware, haircuts, clothing, machinery repair, house building—almost everything people use in their everyday lives.” In this case, government restriction has made something that had previously been easy to acquire that much more difficult, thus increasing the price of pseudoephedrine on the black market to far above the, say, Walgreens price.

Recent government regulation of pseudoephedrine appears to have led to a brief decline in meth production after the regulations were put in place, followed by a bounce back as meth producers found other ways to acquire drug ingredients. In the past year there were, as the AP breathlessly tells it, “10,064 meth incidents, a 62 percent rise over the previous two years.”

Yikes, I guess. This means that there are 0.00003278 meth incidents for every person in the U.S. If that’s too many decimal places for you, perhaps a better way of looking at it would be to say that there is one meth lab incident for every 30,505 people. Per year. And that can be as minor as the seizure of “chemicals and glassware.” I personally am more concerned with car fatalities (which are, by definition, fatal and occur three times more frequently than meth lab incidents).

Say you, or perhaps Gov. Jay Nixon, are still concerned by this uptick in meth statistics. Let’s set aside that we don’t know what type of “incident” is on the rise; whether this is attributable to an increase in use or to better law enforcement; whether the previous low points in the statistics were attributable to declining drug production, or just a shift from one type of drug production to another; and the extraordinarily probable explanation that drug producers will figure out how to adapt (as they have already done) to additional government regulation of pseudoephedrine.

Let’s say that the governor, or even AP reporters, suggest instead that pseudoephedrine be put behind a prescription wall. Only those who have a prescription from a doctor would be allowed to purchase cold medicine. Would that solve the problem? And would that step be worth it?

Okay, yes, those were rhetorical questions. For the first question: Of course not. If meth producers are paying individuals to buy up pseudoephedrine until they hit government-imposed purchased limits, it certainly seems likely that those producers would pay individuals to take the additional step of getting prescriptions to buy up pseudoephedrine. I suppose such a policy would help at least one group of people: Those who could get a perscription and then sell pseudoephedrine to meth producers. I bet that they could get a better price.

The second question is one that I’ve already answered on this blog, and has the same answer as the first: Of course not! There are so few “meth incidents” that to reduce them even by half hardly seems worth the cost to everyone else of either having to go to the doctor’s office when they have a cold, or forgoing treatment.

Again, I’d like to remind legislators, governors, and reporters that health care costs are a huge issue that seems insurmountable at the moment. Regulations like these are bound to increase those costs: Either individuals will have to pay for a doctor’s time in order to obtain a prescription for cold relief, or, if that person has a low co-pay, this regulation will raise health insurance providers’ costs, which will most certainly result in health insurance premium costs rising.

I hope that politicians and reporters will find some other, less intrusive issue to sensationalize for personal gain.

(H/T for post title suggestion to John Payne.)

The post I’m Just Disappointed That the AP Didn’t Play Up the “Dickensian Aspect” a Bit More appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The following are additional resolutions that didn’t make the final list. I tried to model these after resolutions that individuals commonly make for themselves. I thank my colleagues for their collaboration, and I encourage our Show-Me Daily readers to leave additional resolutions in the comments section.

1. Get Out of Debt:
    
   This year, state and local governments in Missouri should resolve to get a handle on their finances. Policymakers can accomplish this by holding off on the pork barrel spending projects and fitting in time for fiscal fitness. Eliminating and reducing debt will have positive fiscal consequences in the future, because the state will not be spending tax monies on interest on debt. Government should resolve to live within its means, as an individual does. There are many policy areas that could save money. For example, school districts could elect against giving superintendents health care for life.
2. Eliminate Clutter:
    
   The state government should conduct a top-down, bottom-up review of all state agencies and regulations to eliminate waste, inefficiency, and government intrusion unrelated to public health and safety. To accomplish this, policymakers may pursue public-private partnerships, privatize services, eliminate underperforming programs, etc.
3. Get Organized:
    
   The state can take measures to reduce bureaucracy and red tape, especially huge mistakes and oversights in its expenditures. For example, the state government is issuing targeted tax credits too quickly to keep track of them. According to an article from the Associated Press, 56 businesses, nonprofit groups, and individuals in Missouri have failed to meet the mandates of a 2004 state law that requires annual progress reports after receiving tax credits. The state government awarded $2 million in tax credits to a convicted embezzler for a development project in Cape Girardeau. With better organization, scandals like this would be much less likely.
4. Find a Job:
    
   The state unemployment rate continues to exceed 9 percent. Missouri would attract a greater number of businesses to the region if it implemented strategies that reduce the cost of doing business in the state. Specific strategies that policymakers can implement are: eliminating personal and corporate income taxes, reducing occupational licensing requirements, and eliminating property tax surcharges.
5. Lose Weight:
    
   Just as individuals need to lose weight to remain fit and healthy, cities and other taxing districts need to save money by cutting out the fat whenever possible in order to remain fiscally sound. Policymakers in Missouri should take steps to limit this growth. Individual governments in Missouri can share resources, consider consolidation or disincorporation when appropriate, and contract with private service providers as much as possible. Individuals make the tough choices to eat less for better health. Taxing districts can make those same hard decisions to outsource, privatize, consolidate, or share services in order to perform key public services at as low a cost as possible. (Hat tip: David Stokes!)
6. Spend More Time With the Kids:
    
   Missouri can take measures to improve educational outcomes, such as increasing school choice. A specific strategy that policymakers can implement would be to expand access to charter schools and virtual schools, the latter of which can provide 24-hour education services to meet flexible schedules. It’s important to note that the most successful charter schools lengthen both school hours and the school year in order to help students catch up with their peers in other schools. (Hat tip: John Payne!)
7. Quit Smoking:
    
   Even staunch environmentalists now understand that the total carbon emissions from the use of ethanol are worse than the emissions from the fuel that ethanol replaces. Energy specialists recognize that it takes more energy to produce a unit of ethanol than the energy that unit returns. It’s bad for your health, your wallet, and the environment. It’s time for the state of Missouri to quit subsidizing, mandating, and abusing this substance.
8. Travel Less:
    
   Gov. Jay Nixon has the habit of holding ribbon-cutting ceremonies for subsidized projects around the state, and then billing the expenses to other agencies. These travel expenditures come at the expense of other programs because they compete for the agencies’ services. Taxpayers in Missouri would be better off if they weren’t footing the bill for these trips, because they could keep a greater proportion of their earnings. (Hat tip: Audrey Spalding!)
9. Spend More Time With Family and Friends:
    
   Just as an individual resolves to “Spend more time with family and friends,” a state government can resolve to increase the level of civil society interaction in Missouri through privatization. Instead of seeing government employees take care of your water utility, or going to a government-sponsored health clinic, we can interact with members of our community that we choose to do business with privately. This resolution could also describe hanging out with a family member or friend while they African-braid your hair or examine your horse’s teeth, even though they do not have a license.

The post New Year’s Resolutions for Missouri Public Policy: From the Cutting Room Floor appeared first on Show-Me Institute.