If we believe it’s essential for schools to teach core academic skills—like reading and math—then we should support the tools that help us measure those skills. Statewide standardized tests remain our best tool for understanding how much students are learning. As the saying goes, what gets measured gets counted.

However, there is growing opposition to state testing in Missouri on both sides of the political aisle. On the left, the education establishment has long resisted all forms of accountability, and what better way to shut down accountability than to stop measuring how students perform in school? The left has been surprisingly effective in undermining the credibility of state tests, leading many to believe they don’t measure what matters. Standardized tests have been criticized for being too narrow, unobjective, and even racist. (I wish I were exaggerating on the last point, but I am not.) At the university level, we saw a brief movement to eliminate SAT and ACT requirements—only to see many institutions walk those changes back once they realized these tests provide crucial insight into academic readiness.

Meanwhile, on the right, the opposition to testing is relatively new. Not long ago, political conservatives were strong advocates for test-based accountability. No Child Left Behind, the largest test-based accountability policy in U.S. history, was ushered in under George W. Bush in the early 2000s. But today, it seems that testing has been swept up in a general push to shrink government and localize decision-making. In Missouri, testing is viewed as part of the state’s top-down policy agenda and a threat to local control.

This left-right alliance is playing out now in Jefferson City. Senate Bill 360, which would dismantle uniform statewide testing and accountability in Missouri, is sponsored by Republican Senator Jill Carter and supported by the National Education Association, a group typically aligned with the left.

All of this is unfortunate, because the truth is we need state standardized tests. The Missouri tests are not what many have been led to believe. They are objective, they are not racially biased, and they are not political. They are not concoctions brewed up in the back room of state government—rather, they are developed by independent experts, grounded in years of research, and focused almost entirely on reading and math.

Without statewide testing, we risk replacing hard data with empty assurances. School districts will insist students are learning—they’re doing exceptionally well, in fact!—and we’ll have no choice but to trust them.

An extreme policy would be to end testing entirely, but an equally damaging policy would be to abandon a common state test and allow school districts to use their own tests. This sounds appealing to local-control advocates, and in fact is the proposal on the table in SB360. But if this were to happen, it would be impossible to compare outcomes across districts, leaving us in the same place as if we had no testing at all.

If you’re unhappy with the direction schools are heading, just wait until we don’t have state tests—and the hard data provided by the tests—to keep them in line.

The post The Testing Bogeyman Is Alive and Well in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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The post The Future of the Department of Education with Ginny Gentles appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

From reading Missouri’s State Board of Education’s reports, one would think that the state’s kids are succeeding in their studies and attending their classes; however, this is not the case. While Missouri schools and districts report their average daily attendance, and it’s incorporated into their Annual Performance Report (APR), these numbers hide individual students who aren’t showing up.

We can’t prove a causal relationship between truancy and poor academic outcomes, but the two are clearly correlated, and common sense tells us that students need to be present to learn. Unfortunately, recently released federal data show that nearly 110,000 Missouri students missed 15 or more days of school in the 2015–16 school year, meaning that they are categorized as “chronically absent.” In seven Missouri school districts, serving a total of over 50,000 students, more than one-quarter of the students were chronically absent.

At the school level, 42 Missouri schools had chronic absenteeism rates of more than 33 percent.

And yet these high-absence schools earned an average of 70 percent of the possible points in the APR evaluation in 2017—well above the 50 percent needed for full accreditation. It’s not surprising that with more than one-third of their students chronically absent, an average of only 15 percent of the students at these schools were proficient in math, and just 32 percent were proficient in reading. In one egregious case, at Kansas City’s Central Middle School, where 54 percent of the students were chronically absent, only 5 percent of students were proficient in math. Yet this school received 75 percent of their APR points, making it fully accredited.

The same trend is apparent at the district level. Kansas City leads with 38 percent of its students qualifying as chronically absent, even though DESE reports a proportional attendance rate of 83 percent for the same year (more on that disconnect in another blog) and a math proficiency rate of less than 25 percent. Yet, the district garnered an APR Score of 64 percent—making it provisionally accredited. Springfield was able to get 84 percent of its APR points, even though one-quarter of its students were chronically absent, and only 40 percent of them are proficient in math.

Though reducing chronic absences will not solve Missouri’s educational woes, making sure kids show up to class is an essential first step for progress. A rating system that gives the impression that children can get a good education when they are not physically present in schools robs them of the chance to succeed. Even more troubling are misleading APR scores that hide the fact that children are not being given the educational opportunities they deserve but being set up to fail.

The post A is for Absent appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

GDP Growth during the Expansions of the Post-WWII Period

Source: CRS calculations based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Note: Economic expansions as identified by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

This result is not just bad—it is catastrophic. The average American should not be wondering if his income is a bit above or below 2007 levels. Just by historical averages, the average American should be 20% better off than in 2007. And this slow growth is settling in as a permanent new-abnormal.

I believe the root cause of abysmal growth is the huge tax increases imposed by President Obama and Congress since 2008. The most harmful were the increase in the capital gains tax from 15 to 20 percent, the increase in top bracket income from 35 to 39.6 percent, and the new tax of 3.8 percent on investment income in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The massive increase in regulatory burden through the ACA and Dodd-Frank bills are also crushing, but unfortunately are harder to measure.

The three tax increases mentioned above (plus higher state and local taxes) directly lower expected returns on all investments. Our government grabs the fruits of investment and then is puzzled when businesses do not invest. This causes billions of dollars of investment projects to come off the table.

Weak investment is the signature feature and cause of the abysmal "recovery" under President Obama. The aggregate of all investments in the United States is Net Private Domestic Investment (NPDI), computed by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Relative to GDP, NPDI averaged 7% per year from1960 to 2008. The average was 7 to 8 percent from 1960 to 1990, and 6.5 percent in the Clinton and George W. Bush years. However, for the Obama years NPDI was an astoundingly low 2% of GDP!

In every year of Obama’s presidency but 2015, NPDI was worse than in any year from 1960 to his inauguration. This isn't bad luck. If nothing changed in the economy, the likelihood of having a period as bad as Obama’s just by chance would be 1 in 1000.

The numbers for GDP and NPDI are interesting, but they’re still just lifeless statistics. The human toll is terrible, taking the form of millions of Americans who can’t find jobs or can’t make ends meet in the jobs they do have.

Dismal investment levels are the predictable result of taxing investment and income at high rates. This terrible economic performance will continue until income and investment taxes are slashed. The government can still raise needed revenue with a broad-base approach, eliminating all the special deductions and credits and allowing very low rates.

On the other hand, maintaining the current high rates will entrench lackluster investment and stagnant incomes and trap far too many Americans in a bleak economic future.

The post The Dismal Recovery appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In my remarks today, I hope to convince you of three things. First, the idea of the Common Core was noble, but misguided. Second, the Common Core State Standards will not significantly improve student achievement. And finally, the federal government created the controversy we have seen surrounding the Common Core over the past few years.

A Noble but Misguided Goal

The idea behind the Common Core is quite simple. Schools need standards because standards allow teachers to align the curriculum and allow teachers to see what they are to cover in each grade. I have been told many times that prior to schools adopting learning standards, it was not uncommon for students in the same grade in the same school to have radically different experiences depending on the teachers they had. Standards help alleviate that problem.

Following the infamous “A Nation at Risk Report” report of 1983, the standards movement was launched. This Reagan-administration report used alarming language to describe the nation’s education system. The authors of the report wrote:

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. . . . We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

The report fueled a desire to improve the quality of our education system. State officials wanted to keep a watchful eye on how schools were performing. To do that they needed tests, and to have tests, they needed standards on which to base them.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, states began creating their own standards-based accountability systems. By 2000, 39 states had accountability systems in place. After the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001, the remaining states were forced to follow suit. As a result, by the mid-2000s we had 50 different state standards and 50 different accountability systems.

These individual state standards created a problem. Students from families that moved from one state to another could miss entire topics if they were covered in one grade in one state and in a different grade in another. And, very importantly, the different tests did not allow us to compare one state to another because the accountability systems were different. In a state with very low standards a student might score “proficient,” but if he were in a state with very high standards he might score “basic.”

In reality, these were not problems created by having 50 state standards. They were problems that have always existed, and in many regards still exist. To be honest, these problems are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. I mean, would you go through all of the effort that the Common Core designers went through just to improve transparency across states? I wouldn’t, especially when we have the National Assessment of Educational progress, known as the nation’s report card, which already allows us to compare one state to another. The most valid reason to support the Common Core comes from the thought that these standards could improve student achievement for all students. This is where the supporters for Common Core were misguided. This is where the logic for Common Core falters, and this is what brings me to my second point: that Common Core will not improve educational outcomes for students.

Common Core Will Not Improve Educational Outcomes

Let me ask: How might a system of new standards improve educational outcomes for all students? As far as I can tell, there are three options:

• The standards could better align the curriculum.
• The standards could be more rigorous.
• Or, the standards could create a broader platform for collaboration.

Let’s examine each of these.

The standards could better align the curriculum

Remember, states have already developed standards and aligned curricula. We’d have to believe that the Common Core has somehow come up with a better way to do these things—that they have discovered the special sauce or that the designers have figured out the right progression of learning. Something tells me that is not the case. While the quality of education research is improving, there is simply not enough evidence to know if we should teach fractions in third grade or fourth, or whether we should introduce money in kindergarten or first grade. I recently sat on a committee to rewrite Missouri’s state standards. I can tell you, while the process is informed by research, it often comes down to educated guessing. The individuals making these guesses are indeed educated, but in the end, many of these decisions are completely subjective.

So what is the second option?

The standards could be simply be more rigorous

They could raise the level of expectations for students. After all, students rise to the level of expectation, don’t they? If this were true, we would expect students in states that previously had rigorous standards to perform better than students in states with weaker standards. In a study for the Brookings Institution, Tom Loveless examined this very issue. He found no relationship between the rigor of state standards and student performance on the NAEP. None. Another thing to consider is that ratings of the Common Core Standards by the Fordham Foundation, a group that has been very supportive of the effort, do not place Common Core at the top of the standards list. They are among the best according to Fordham, but in Math and Language arts, other standards were rated higher. If we believe that rigor or the quality of standards matter, then it puzzles me why supporters of national standards would be so willing to go to bat for Common Core. Why not simply adopt the superior Massachusetts standards?

The Common Core will not improve student achievement by better aligning curriculum, nor can we improve student learning simply by being more rigorous. What’s left?

A system of national standards could create a broader platform for collaboration

Before Common Core, textbook companies often designed curricula for more populous states like California and Texas. As a result, states found it difficult to get textbooks that aligned with their individual standards. Common Core helps alleviate this problem. Moreover, it allows teachers throughout the country to collaborate on lessons related to the standards. While this sounds great, planning on a substantial benefit from collaboration is misguided. If it were true that more opportunities for collaboration led to success, then we would expect to see more populous states—those that drive textbook production—to have an advantage. Not only would they have textbooks tailored to their curricula, but with a larger number of teachers, they would have greater opportunities for collaboration. Yet, we don’t see a California or Texas advantage.

In the face of the evidence, there is simply no logical model that can explain how a set of standards that simply tells teachers what to teach will improve student learning. At least not today.

To be clear: Standards are important, and evidence does show that the standards-based accountability movement has led to modest learning gains for students. It seems, however, that the low-hanging fruit has been picked. Schools have already aligned curricula, and we have already begun focusing on student outcomes. New standards may have some impact on the margins, but by themselves they cannot substantially improve student achievement.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive indictment of Common Core. I don’t believe Common Core will ruin our education system. I don’t believe it is some grand conspiracy to dumb down America. I simply believe it is bad policy.

But if Common Core is innocuous, then why are we devoting so much time to it? We are having this conversation today because promoters of Common Core oversold, and because the federal government overstepped. As is often the case, the actions of the federal government came with unintended consequences.

The Federal Government Created the Common Core Controversy

Common Core did not begin as a federal initiative. I hesitate to call this a “state-led” initiative, and it certainly wasn’t a grass roots initiative. It was instigated by the National Governors’ Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. These two trade organizations began the process late in George W. Bush’s administration, but the idea of national standards goes back even further, to his father’s administration. Early on in the development of the Common Core standards, some thought that the standards would be adopted by a handful of states; it was hoped that other states would adopt them voluntarily over time. That changed with federal involvement.

In 2009, President Obama launched his Race to the Top initiative, a competitive grant program that was part of the stimulus plan. States could compete for $4.35 billion dollars in prize money by proposing a series of reforms. This came at a time when states were feeling the pressure of the recession and could ill afford to pass up an opportunity for additional federal funding. One of the reforms supported in Race to the Top was the adoption of learning standards that were common to a majority of states—what would become Common Core.

As part of the first round of the Race to the Top process, states had to submit their applications (including a commitment to the Common Core standards) by January 19, 2010. The second round was June 1. But the final draft of the standards was not even released until June of 2010. In other words, the federal government encouraged states to commit to common standards before those standards were even finalized. Still, states jumped at the opportunity. By 2013, 45 states had adopted the standards. President Obama took credit for this in his State of the Union address.

At the same time, the Obama administration doubled down on support of Common Core by offering to waive certain No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements to states that adopted Common Core. Schools and states were finding it increasingly difficult to comply with various aspects of NCLB; that is, they had failed to meet the mandated 100 percent proficiency marks. States could avoid penalties by promoting education reform policies championed by the administration, one of which was common standards.

Whether you support federal involvement or not, it is difficult to deny that the actions of the U.S. Department of Education caused or at least contributed to the controversy surrounding Common Core. What might have been a coalition of states that grew and developed over time was catapulted into the national stage as a new and radical reform that many states adopted, if not against their will, then at least under duress.

Conclusion

While the motivation behind the Common Core standards was good, the outcomes—at least in terms of liberty—are not. Common Core moves control of one of the most important aspects of education—what students learn—further from students and parents, and it concentrates power at the federal level. As Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman once said, “Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” The Common Core standards reduce individual liberty and academic freedom for states, teachers, and students. They nullify the great advantage of individual states—the ability to act as laboratories that allow us to evaluate different systems to see what works best—in favor of a monolithic approach that stifles innovation. Ultimately, the Common Core movement is an expression of the flawed mindset that we can mandate and orchestrate improved student achievement through centralized control. 

The post A Well Intentioned Disaster: A Presentation on the Merits of Common Core State Standards appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Fifty years ago this week, President Lyndon B. Johnson enacted a series of welfare programs called the War on Poverty. One of these programs was Head Start, a program aimed at preparing low-income children for kindergarten.

Also under the umbrella of the War on Poverty, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was enacted in 1965. The purpose of ESEA was to start funding schools with federal money, but it forbade a national curriculum.

Under President Jimmy Carter’s administration, the Department of Education was founded in 1979. Just a few years later, in 1983, the American public was shocked by the findings of A Nation at Risk, a report issued by the National Commission on Excellence in Education during President Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

President George H. W. Bush and President Bill Clinton left their mark on standards-based education in the 1990s with America 2000 (Bush) and Goals 2000 (Clinton).

In 2001, President George W. Bush reauthorized the ESEA under a new name, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and in 2011, the U.S. Department of Education began awarding states with flexibility waivers from NCLB if they did things like adopt Common Core or evaluate teachers based on student achievement.

In just 50 years, federal oversight in education has grown and evolved. On the anniversary of one of LBJ’s key initiatives, some are calling for even more government intervention to fix the inequalities that still plague the United States today.

But federal intervention will not solve Missouri’s education problems—just look at the results. Few would argue the education system in America is in good shape, or that every child is receiving a quality education. So why institute more government intervention?

If the past 50 years has taught us anything, it’s that Missouri needs to enter a new era of education reform, one in which choice and competition are embraced.

The post Education: A Brief History Of Federal Overreach appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Clearly, one thing streetcar proponents do not want to do is wait to see the results of the initial streetcar line, but why the rush? Why do city officials think the streetcar expansion proposal is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”? Some streetcar proponents fear that the Republicans might win the presidency and stop giving money to transit, and at more than $50 million a mile, streetcar projects are just too expensive for cities to undertake without federal help. As one streetcar supporter put it, “Do you think President Ted Cruz would fund urban transit?”

The answer to that question is yes, actually, if history is any guide. Below is a chart of federal spending on capital improvements for transit, through two Republican and Democratic presidents.

While the Obama administration has increased support for transit, the George W. Bush administration was also a big spender. What’s more, a future Republican administration is unlikely to be catastrophic for transit funding, as almost 80 percent of funds come directly from a federal Mass Transit Account. This account will continue to provide a baseline of transit funding under any new administration.

What streetcar advocates really have to fear is not the defunding of urban transit, but the defunding of streetcars in favor of other forms of transit. Past administrations favored transit projects that reduced congestion or improved mobility, so streetcars received few federal dollars. The Obama administration’s desire to use transit projects to create “livable communities” has made federal streetcar funding possible.

But if the more than 10 planned streetcar projects are as successful as proponents hope – both in terms of development and boosting transit – the next administration (Team Red or Blue) would likely fund more streetcar projects. Only if the streetcars fail to meet expectations, given their massive cost, would federal money dry up for streetcars.

Perhaps it’s that possibility – that streetcars face a tough accounting in future– that has supporters in a rush. What’s certain is that federal transit funding is not going anywhere, and if streetcars are so great for urban areas, the money will be there if Kansas City ever decides to expand its streetcar line. And if streetcars turn out to be an urban planning fad and that funding disappears? Kansas City will be better off for its caution. When it comes to expanding the streetcar, Kansas City residents should feel free to emulate the streetcar and take it slow.

The post Streetcar Fever: Is it Now Or Never To Expand The Kansas City Streetcar? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Here is a quick recap of recent events. This past year the airport enjoyed service from American Airlines, Delta, and Frontier Airlines. But American Airlines is now the only commercial airline staying in Columbia, as Delta already left the market, and Frontier exits in May.

Consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff will provide design services for the new terminal for $38,000. In a recent press release, Parsons Brinckerhoff hypes the new terminal and defends the need, stating that “Columbia Regional Airport has been experiencing growth and has seen an increase in the number of commercial airline service offerings.”

After reading that, I literally double-checked the date of the press release to confirm that it indeed said March, 28, 2013, and not 2012. While it is technically true that the airport has increased commercial airline service offerings, the statement leaves off the very important second half of that statement — the growth has stopped, and service offerings are much lower than they were a year ago.  It is like saying George Bush is president. It was true, at one point in time, but you are not going to find him at the White House today.

Still, city leaders seem confident with their multi-million dollar plan. The Columbia City Council decided on Monday to transfer $1.2 million away from other city projects to fund the terminal, and plan to allot another $18.7 million to the project in the 2014 Capital Improvement Plan, in hopes that the federal government will agree to contribute a large portion of the total cost.

The post Funny-But-Not-So-Funny Update On Columbia Airport appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

If you are not in the happy position of earning at least slightly more than you spend, what portion of your household budget comes from borrowing, or selling the family silver? Is it the seemingly modest 3 percent that spelt M-I-S-E-R-Y for Dickens’ character, who wound up in debtors’ prison? Or is it even worse than that? Say, a mind-boggling 43 percent? In percentage terms, that is the expected shortfall between U.S. government receipts and expenditures in the 2011 federal budget.

According to revised numbers released last week, the Barack Obama administration expects its annual revenues for fiscal 2011 to come in at $2.173 trillion, versus annual expenditures of $3.818 trillion. That leaves a deficit of $1.645 trillion. As a result, our government will have to borrow (or find other ways to paper over) 43 cents out of every dollar that it intends to spend.

The Obama administration has more than tripled the national deficit since the last full year of the George W. Bush administration. In doing so, it has achieved a remarkable feat: It has made the gap between federal receipts and outlays even wider than it was at the height of World War II.

U.S. spending during the war increased by a factor of eight, rising from $8.5 billion in 1940 to $70.6 billion in 1945. The huge increase in federal expenditures happened for many reasons. Among other things, it supported the 12 million men and women serving in the U.S. armed forces at the peak of the war. It also supported a hundredfold increase in annual production of military airplanes, on the way to annual production of more than 96,000 fighters, bombers, and transport aircraft in 1944.

To raise additional revenues during the war, the government came up with the ingenious device of a withholding tax on payroll checks. Federal tax receipts rose from $8.2 billion in 1940 to $41.5 billion in 1945 — a fivefold increase. That left an annual deficit in 1945 of $29.1 billion, or 41 percent, on total expenditures of $70.6 billion.

Thus, during the greatest war in human history, the United States — supplying not just its own forces, but those of Britain and Russia — had a budget deficit two percentage points below the gap that now looms for fiscal 2011.

When a nation is at war against a deadly enemy, many people accept that the government will demand sacrifices on the part of citizens. During World War II, this included not just increased taxes, but rationing, price controls, conscription, and other limitations on individual freedom. As Nobel laureate economist F.A. Hayek wrote in The Road to Serfdom, “The only exception to the rule that a free society must not be subjected to a single purpose is war and other temporary disasters when subordination of almost everything to the immediate and pressing need is the price at which we preserve our freedom in the long run.”

Does the Obama administration live up to Hayek’s test? I believe not. The all-encompassing unity of national purpose of which Hayek spoke disappears under all but the gravest and most immediate peril.

Federal spending will reach an estimated 25.3 percent of gross domestic product in fiscal 2011, up almost five percentage points since 2008. To what end? Far from kick starting the economy, the government’s heavy reliance on deficit spending has only served to expand an already bloated public sector and to constrict the private sector. This is, indeed, the road to serfdom.

Andrew B. Wilson is senior editor at the Show-Me Institute, an independent think tank promoting free-market solutions for Missouri public policy.

The post A Sky-Is-the-Limit Federal Budget appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Gosh, it was only a year ago when U.S. senators and representatives were debating provisions of a large-scale, mostly unread health care bill. One of the biggest issues at the time prompting the discussion of health care policy was the concern that U.S. health care costs are rapidly increasing, for both the government and the private sector.

Nixon’s proposal flies in the face of previous and current attempts to decrease health care costs. Requiring residents to see a doctor to obtain a prescription for, say, Sudafed vastly increases the cost for both individuals and health insurers.

For example, if I am sick tomorrow and need nasal decongestant, I will head to the nearest Walgreens and pick up the generic version of Sudafed for about $5. The entire process will take me less than 15 minutes. However, if I am sick in the future and the prescription requirement has been implemented, the additional cost to obtain medicine will include a visit to my doctor. The monetary cost to me could still be relatively low, if I have a low co-pay, but if I am uninsured, have a high co-pay, or a high-deductible health insurance policy, I may have to pay a great deal more. Meanwhile, my health insurance provider will pay whatever cost that I don’t, resulting in — all else being equal — higher health insurance premiums. All for the privilege of seeing a doctor. Because the state says so.

Now, I know that some, including the governor and Attorney General Chris Koster, will argue that these increased costs are worth it if meth-related accidents decrease. But this ignores that a number of other state laws have already been implemented specifically to eliminate meth production (and access to decongestant). The governor, in his press release, enumerates other restrictions already in place:

By law, pseudoephedrine must now be sold behind a pharmacy counter and buyers are limited to purchasing no more than 3.6 grams, or 120 standard tablets in a 24 hour period, and 9 grams, or 300 standard tablets, in a 30-day period. On Sept. 28, a new state rule took effect, giving authority to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) to work with law enforcement and pharmacies on a new database that automatically blocks over the limit sales of pseudoephedrine and allows law enforcement agencies to track pseudoephedrine purchases in real time.

So, Missouri government already limits the purchase of pseudoephedrine, restricts where it can be sold, and tracks those who purchase the drug. What else can the state do, short of making nasal decongestant illegal?

In fact, a good example of these policies at work can be found in Oregon, one of two states that have enacted prescription requirements for pseudoephedrine. According to Oregon’s Narcotics Enforcement Association, in late 2004, the state began requiring photo identification from purchasers of medicine containing pseudoephedrine, and the state required that those medicines be sold behind the counter. In 2005, the state tightened these restrictions, requiring the medicines to be sold behind pharmacy counters, and began tracking purchasers of the medicines. Those restrictions led to a dramatic decrease in the annual number of “meth lab incidents.”

In 2004, Oregon reported 448 meth lab incidents. In 2006, the count was down to 63.

But that wasn’t low enough for Oregon. In July 2006, a new rule was set: Medicines containing pseudoephedrine could only be purchased with a prescription. And that odious requirement, which almost certainly has pushed up health care costs in Oregon, appears to have resulted in the elimination of roughly 40 meth incidents per year (Oregon now has about 20 each year).

There are a few things I don’t know, but suspect may be at work. First, how do we know that Oregon’s policies have stamped out dangerous drug-related incidents? It may be that Oregon’s pseudoephedrine restrictions have merely encouraged meth producers to produce different illegal drugs instead. Furthermore, these numbers are for recent years. In the future, meth producers may figure out a way of acquiring pseudoephedrine that will bypass the restrictions.

All the while, more Oregonians have to go to the doctor in order to obtain cold medicine. Is the cost of their time and the resulting increase in health care costs worth it? I don’t think so.

Rapidly increasing health care costs are not a new problem. From our most recent three U.S. presidents:

Former President Bill Clinton:

Small businesses will continue to face skyrocketing premiums and a full third of small businesses now covering their employees say they will be forced to drop their insurance. Large corporations will bear bigger disadvantages in global competition, and health care costs will devour more and more and more of our budget.

Former President George W. Bush:

We share a common goal: making health care more affordable and accessible for all Americans. The best way to achieve that goal is by expanding consumer choice, not government control.

President Barack Obama:

Then there’s the problem of rising cost. We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages. It’s why so many employers — especially small businesses — are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance, or are dropping their coverage entirely.

Regulations and restrictions like the prescription requirement proposed are certainly part of the health care cost problem. I hope Missouri’s governor will realize that, and withdraw his proposal.

The post Well, That’s One Way to Increase Health Care Costs appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon.

With all the talk about polarizing politics and the fracturing of our democratic institutions, I have found the one topic upon which everyone can agree. Oh, and can disagree. That is protectionism.

On Sept. 11, President Barack Obama imposed a whopping 35-percent tariff on imported Chinese tires. Right-wing free-traders raised a hue and cry about his action. On the left, the New York Times editorial page observed that Mr. Obama “acted unwisely” in erecting this newest barrier to trade.

In response to critics, Mr. Obama should simply claim right of office. History shows that protectionism knows no party affiliation.

Ronald Reagan, the great advocate of free trade, slapped a 100-percent tariff on Japanese electronics in the late 1980s. His administration also pressured Japanese automakers into a “voluntary” restraint on their exports to the United States.

Bill Clinton championed the North American Free Trade Agreement and imposed punitive tariffs on imported steel. One Clinton official anonymously justified the move to the New York Times by noting that “The U.S. has a right to safeguard its industries and to impose temporary relief to address serious injury.” (By the way, much of the tariff fell on the kind of wire rod used to make clothes hangers.)

There are other examples: Lyndon Johnson threatened the French that the United States would not lower its tariffs on manufactured goods imported from their country unless they lowered the tariffs on our agricultural goods. George W. Bush followed Clinton’s lead by imposing stiff tariffs on steel, in an effort to protect the domestic steel industry.

Presidents of all political stripes seem disposed to impose tariffs, but is there an economic justification?

A tariff acts as a tax on an imported good. Like any tax, a tariff distorts the market’s equilibrium price and quantity for the good. And, like any tax, the government prospers. In this case, however, so do domestic producers. Because the imported good is now more expensive, U.S. producers are able to continue operating. And therein lies the true reason for tariffs: They supposedly save jobs.

In the case of Clinton’s steel wire tariff, the domestic wire industry employed at most an estimated 4,000 workers. For the modern tire industry, however, the number of “protected” jobs is much higher. But tariffs may not even save domestic jobs. Economist Thomas Prusa of Rutgers University estimates that Obama’s tariff could actually result in a net loss of 25,000 U.S. jobs over time. Moreover, he calculates that the annual cost of each job saved in the short term is upward of $300,000.

The big losers from a tariff are consumers. The price of tires, on average, will be higher after the most recent tariff. Using data from the International Trade Commission, Daniel Ikenson of the Cato Institute estimates that the average tire price for a post-tariff Chinese import will be about $60, significantly higher than its current average price of about $39. That raises the import price much closer to the average U.S. price, which is around $68. But the average post-tariff price of a tire — imported and domestic — has increased from $53 to $64. On average, consumers pay more for tires. Period.

If we all pay more for tires or steel or electronics after a president imposes a tariff, how can they get away with it? Consumers who pay more for tires or coat hangers or electronics are politically diverse. We do not have a strong lobby in Washington, D.C. The workers who face stiffer competition and may lose their jobs are much better organized. So are their lobbyists.

Presidential tariffs are as common as admonishing welfare cheats and overpaid CEOs. Leaving good economics behind, Obama is only channeling his predecessors. Too bad: I thought he was the president of change.

Rik W. Hafer is distinguished research professor and chair of the Department of Economics and Finance at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a scholar at the Show-Me Institute.

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Of course, the opposite sentiment is applied to George W. Bush. I have relatives on my wife’s side whose dislike hatred of Bush began with “Bush is an idiot,” and never moved beyond the same mantra. I have a brother who was a fairly liberal Democrat until he worked at at place surrounded by Bush-haters who could never say why they disliked him beyond, “He’s an idiot.” Needless to say, he quickly tired of that act. Obviously, I am not referring to my brother Chris, who worked for the White House; I have two other brothers, so his identity is still unknown to you, gentle readers.

So, do we want smart presidents and other elected officials? Yes, of course we do. But there is another issue with really smart people obtaining so much power over your life. We have this from Freakonomics (emphasis added):

Epstein then goes on to describe his prediction for the Obama economics team:

Obama comes from the tradition that thinks you can get your way on social justice and economic issues without affecting productivity very much — and that’s simply living in a dream world. … [Obama and his economics team] are very smart, but the problem is these high-I.Q. guys always think they can square the circle; they always believe they can beat the system with a cleverer system, and they always fail.

David Halberstam’s famous book, The Best and the Brightest, had much the same theme. I once read — although I can’t remember where — that Halberstam lamented how too many people take his title as literal praise of the team of advisers Kennedy and Johnson put together, and too few people understood the irony in both the title and the whole book. The “best and brightest” are very often the same people who feel they are smarter than you (and they probably are), so that gives them the right to tell you how to live your life for your own good (which it doesn’t).

I don’t know whether we have ever had a truly dumb president. I honestly don’t think it is possible to rise to that level without being pretty smart. But not all kinds of “smart” are required to be president. An ability to calculate pi to the 100th decimal point in your head does not help much in this job. An ability to be smart enough to know your own limits and to admit when you are wrong is key to a successful presidency. Good judgment is imperative, and may be the single most valuable asset to a president. But, frankly, I’d take a person with average intelligence who does not want to run my life over a person who is brilliant but thinks that gives him (or her) the right to run every aspect of my life.

Perhaps it is a sign of true brilliance to raise taxes on smokers and the rich (let’s not even get into the definition of “rich”), to give bailout after bailout to private companies, to grow the welfare state and increase dependency, and on and on. Perhaps he is so brilliant that I am too stupid to understand how it will help me, or even more likely I am too stupid to understand how my selfishness is hurting “working families.” Perhaps, but I doubt it.

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But, since I just praised Ms. McCaskill, I can call her out for her nonsensical statement in an interview that Reardon just played. She ripped President Bush (deservedly so) for building up such a large deficit, and then praised President Obama for his commitment to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, while just ignoring the fact that Obama’s proposed budget has quadrupled (at least tripled) the projected deficit for next year. Mr. Reardon is a lot of fun to listen to right now. …

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As one commentator mentioned while I watched the live coverage, “By the end of the day, former President Bush will become George Bush, citizen, and Barack Obama, citizen, President Obama — and all in the name of the Constitution. …” Obama himself said, three days ago, that “the transition of power is a symbol of democracy’s strength.”

It’s remarkable to me how most Americans go about their business, and take for granted what is still viewed in certain parts of the world as quite a challenge. In fact, in many third-world countries like mine, conceding power to a new, upcoming chain of command is sometimes seen as an agenda impossible to fulfill, a pure and simple utopia. It’s very common for such countries to have some political form of “dictatorship,” in which constitutions are amended, reviewed, and forged with the explicit goal of helping the current power sustain and maintain itself “for life.” Often, the only way out involves the death of the leader, or — in much more sinister cases — a coup d’etat that sometimes sheds the blood of innocent victims, as well as that of the “greedy” actors and players of the political arena.

A recent example of this type of situation can be seen in the case of Guinea last month. If the United States were like Guinea, Bush would have simply refused to step down from power on the morning of January 20, using the army to back him up, and subjecting the country and its institutions to an uncertain destiny and a level of chaos that the people here probably can’t imagine actually facing. But, luckily, American democracy is mature enough to teach their “know-how” to the rest of the world.

Hoorah for the smooth transition … regardless of your political views, that is America’s legacy to the world.

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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.

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“I was very upfront,” McCaskill said of her discussion with [InBev’s CEO Carlos] Brito. After offering him a Budweiser and sipping one herself, she told him she would “do everything I could to stop this sale from going through … It’s a bad idea. I don’t want you to buy it. The people of Missouri don’t want you to buy it.”

Politicians never seem to understand how capitalism works. The InBev deal is not the government’s decision or the people of Missouri’s decision. It is the decision of the shareholders of Anheuser-Busch. If shareholders reject the InBev deal, AB stock will plummet. But that is the shareholders’ decision, not ours.

More from the article:

Speaking to reporters after, McCaskill blasted the proposal as a “premium profit for hedge fund investors” and said A-B is a strong company that has provided thousands of good middle class American jobs.

Anheuser-Busch displaced thousands of good middle class American jobs last year when it bought out Pennsylvania’s Rolling Rock. And despite a website that looks very familiar to another local website, there was no outcry (or even a tear) from Missouri public officials.

“We do not have a ?For Sale’ sign on our front lawn in America,” she said.

Well, then maybe the government shouldn’t have gotten to the point where the American people owe $9.2 trillion dollars (of which about a third was accumulated under President Clinton, and another third under President Bush). If I owed trillions of dollars in debt, I might have to sell off a few possessions, too.

The Post-Dispatch (surprisingly) ran a pretty good reality check on the AB deal. And yours truly did, too.

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The NSA, President Bush, and the other intel agencies argue that attaining this private communications information is crucial to preventing another terrorist attack, and that the process of “data mining” has worked to catch terrorists and prevent such an attack by finding terrorist cells based on their communication patterns. They further assert that such “wiretapping” actions are justified under the Patriot Act and the broad authority granted the president as commander-in-chief to prosecute the ongoing “war on terror” in whatever manor he finds most suitable.

The issue here is efficacy. If the procedure of “data mining” works, and the associated right to privacy being surrendered is made up for with real added security and effectiveness against terrorists, and the information being gathered is being used solely for that purpose, then it’s reasonable to surrender some privacy right in exchange for that security. Commissioner Steve Gaw sums it up nicely:

“We have tried to be sensitive on not delving into issues that could cause a security issue,” Gaw said. “At the same time, if we give up rights and freedom in order to be secure, what have we gained? And what have we lost?”

Our friends over that the Cato Institute have published an interesting paper calling into question the very efficacy of “data mining,” or the systematic combing through of billions of bits of information for communications patterns likely to be attributable to terrorist activities. They essentially argue that the process is flawed, largely ineffective, and that the benefits it conveys are not worth the tradeoff in security gains. I am no expert on anything, much less computer science or national security, but I do know that I’m not a terrorist,  nor is there any reason for the gov’t to assume that I am. Until they have probable cause to believe otherwise, my phone records should remain nobody’s business but my own. If my telephone company has circumvented that right to privacy I deserve to know, and will most assuredly switch to another provider more respectful of my civil liberties.

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