He poses the problem that Social Security and Medicare costs continue to grow as we live longer. In 1935, life expectancy was 59.9 years old for a man and 63.9 for a woman. More than 75 years later, life expectancy has grown to 76.2 and 81.1 for men and women, respectively.

So what is McClellan’s tongue-in-cheek solution? The government should stop encouraging healthy behavior and just let everyone do what they want. If people want to smoke themselves to death, eat themselves to death, drink themselves to death . . . so be it. “If somebody wants to opt for enjoyment over longevity, the government ought to leave that person alone,” McClellan wrote.

While McClellan’s overall tone is a bit morbid, he has a point. What should the government’s role be in our lives regarding our personal health choices? My natural reaction is to want all the people in my life to make healthy choices. Heck, I am a personal trainer. I spend a few hours every week educating people about healthy choices. But I am no Michael Bloomberg — I respect people’s choices and do not believe in forcing behavior that I want. The government should not have the right to do this either.

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This represents an unfortunate trend in public policy: to counteract the negative consequences of one policy, government officials propose another policy that further distorts the market, instead of repealing the first policy. It’s similar to the way in which the federal government subsidizes the production of corn, then proposes to tax products made with corn syrup. If New York City were serious about solving its budgetary problems, perhaps it would consider eliminating the 5-percent film tax credit that it offers to producers, instead of slapping fees on top of subsidies.

I have additional concerns about the policy. From the article:

“Everybody I’ve talked to about this—and I’ve called a number of producers—they couldn’t stop laughing because it’s $300 one time,” said Mr. Bloomberg. “They go anyplace else, they pay $1,000 every two weeks. And it’s such a small percentage of their budget.”

If a producer is in Bloomberg’s list of contacts, he has probably already experienced success in the film or television industry and has a large budget. I am skeptical that Bloomberg has any small-scale, independent filmmakers on speed-dial. Additionally, I’m not surprised at all that these large-scale producers would support an additional barrier to entry in the film industry — the fee positively affects them because it protects them from future competitors. This is a prime example of rent seeking.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg […] said the fee was too small to impact Hollywood business decisions.

Although $300 may not be significant to productions with large budgets, this fee could have a measurable effect on smaller, independent productions. Many of these producers will decide to move away from New York City as a result of this policy, and it’s possible that some of them may end up in Missouri. According to the Missouri Film Commission, Missouri does not require local film permits.

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Supporters, like Bloomberg, say bonuses for teachers who improve student achievement would reward effective work and attract strong people to the job. But some opponents, including many teachers unions, worry about the idea of gauging teachers based on a narrow factor like standardized tests.

U.S. teachers are typically paid on a system that rewards seniority, with an average starting salary of around $31,000.

Bloomberg said some critics believe that offering financial incentives to teachers somehow diminishes their altruistic motives — an idea he denounced as "ridiculous."

"We should be offering teachers and principals incentives not only to take the toughest assignments, and to fill special needs, but also to get the best possible results from their students," he said.

Support by politicians like Obama and Bloomberg helps demonstrate that using market mechanisms to improve public schools isn’t a party- or ideology-based issue. People simply want the schools to work, so their kids can learn. Ignoring market-based solutions is a recipe for continued failure.

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Shifting political alliances and personality conflicts have produced six superintendents in the last five years. This has made it difficult for superintendents to set long-term goals, and made it impossible for the fractious school board to hold anyone accountable for their results. It is simply naïve to imagine Saint Louis schools will improve amidst this kind of discord and leadership turnover. What the district needs is decisive, consistent leadership. 

As I argue in a forthcoming study for the Show-Me Institute, mayoral control of urban school districts can help bring to cities like Saint Louis the focus and consistency that is lacking. Boston is a model of how this can work when done well. Boston’s mayor was given control of the school board in 1991 and a few years later tapped Thomas Payzant, an official in the Clinton administration’s Department of Education and former San Diego superintendent, to run the system. In 2006, Payzant concluded a heralded 11-year run, as the district claimed the Broad Prize for Urban Education. Consistent mayoral support from the stolid Tom Menino throughout Payzant’s tenure gave him the time he needed to right a troubled district. 

A similar success story may be unfolding in New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was given control of the New York City school board in 2002. While they have not proceeded without controversy, Bloomberg’s policies have generally received high marks. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has singled out the gains by minority students in New York and Chancellor Joel Klein has become a national voice for aggressive, focused urban reform. It is too early to judge the success of the Bloomberg-Klein reforms, but it is clear that they have moved New York past the confusion and petty turmoil that currently bedevils Saint Louis.

On the other hand, Washington, DC, offers a cautionary tale. In 2000, the D.C. school board was amended to include four mayoral appointees and five members elected by the public. This “hybrid” model was hailed as a superior alternative to straight mayoral control, and its backers included Mayor Anthony Williams, the Washington Post, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and the Federal City Council. Six years later, the hybrid design is widely regarded as ineffectual, especially with a mayor whose attention to schools was flitting and whose energies were concentrated elsewhere. Williams himself has described his partial authority over the D.C. school board as “trying to drive a car with one pedal.”

There is reason to believe that mayoral control of large urban districts offers a better chance for disciplined oversight, real accountability, and sustained focus than does continued control by an elected school board. But in order for mayoral control to work as intended, careful attention must be paid to how the reform is executed. In particular, it is absolutely critical that Mayor Slay demonstrate a willingness to mobilize support and expend political capital on behalf of a coherent reform agenda. Such action will require the backing of business and civic leaders in Saint Louis. Those leaders, in turn, must be willing to hold the mayor’s feet to the fire, insisting that he set clear goals for the district, establish meaningful benchmarks, and do what is necessary to see that district officials are getting the job done.

Absent this commitment, a takeover will do little more than increase confusion. Meanwhile, a poorly-executed transfer of authority could yield new problems by reducing transparency, making it harder for local voices to get a hearing, and further insulating district leaders from at least rudimentary democratic oversight.

Mayoral control is no quick fix or panacea. But as Boston and New York show, if pursued thoughtfully, it can invigorate school improvement. If Mayor Slay is willing to make school improvement the centerpiece of his administration, and if business and civic leaders are willing to throw their weight behind the mayor’s agenda, it could offer new hope to the nearly 40,000 kids in Saint Louis schools.

Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming study from the Show-Me Institute on mayoral control of urban school districts. He holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

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A group calling itself the Coalition for a Healthy Future has a suggestion to help the poor pay for medical care: raise their taxes.

Well, that’s not how the Coalition describes their plan. The group wants to more than quintuple Missouri’s cigarette excise tax, to 97 cents a pack, and use the proceeds to help finance Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor. The proposal, which the group hopes to put on the November 2006 ballot, is bad policy. It’s regressive, and it’s unfair to smokers. Voters should reject it, just as they rejected a similar tax hike in 2002.

Excise taxes are inherently regressive because the poor spend a larger share of their incomes on consumer goods. But cigarette taxes fall especially hard on poor Americans. According to a 2002 Centers for Disease Control survey, 33 percent of adults with incomes below the poverty line smoked, compared with only 22 percent of other adults. The Committee for a Healthy Future’s plan would raise taxes the most on precisely the people they’re trying to help.

But don’t smokers impose higher costs on society? Advocates of higher cigarette taxes point out that the health problems associated with smoking are treated at state expense by Medicaid. It’s only fair, they reason, that smokers pay for those higher costs through higher taxes.

It’s a good argument. The only problem is that it isn’t true. It’s true that treating smoking-related illnesses costs money. But that ignores the tragic reality that smokers die younger than non-smokers. As a result, they impose fewer costs on the retirement system. It’s hardly fair to demand that smokers pay for the costs of smoking-related illnesses while ignoring the benefits they never live to collect.

But in fact, the value of benefits not received by smokers is substantial. According to a 1998 study by Jane Gravelle of the Congressional Research Service, after accounting for the lower costs of smokers’ retirement benefits, state governments nationwide saved about $2.1 billion each year due to smoking. And that’s before considering the added revenue from excise taxes. The federal government saves even more as a result of smoking—$29 billion annually, according to Gravelle’s calculation.

Obviously, smoker deaths are nothing to celebrate. But the point is that smokers are already paying more than their fair share for the services they receive. They don’t owe the rest of us anything.

It’s no secret that the real goal of cigarette tax hikes isn’t to shore up Medicaid or compensate for the health costs of smoking, but to encourage smokers to quit. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who signed a bill giving New York City among the nation’s highest cigarette taxes, has said as much. When signing the 2002 legislation, he stated that his purpose was not to raise revenue, but to “save peoples’ lives.” If it were up to him, he said, he would “raise the cigarette tax so high the revenues from it would go to zero.”

The American Heart Association, a member of the Coalition for a Healthy Future, agrees. “We, in the public health community, already know the value of increasing state tobacco taxes, particularly in terms of saving lives,” said Katherine Krause, executive vice president of Advocacy.

Saving lives is a worthy goal, but it shouldn’t come at the price of personal freedom. Fortunately, average Missourians understand that, however much non-smokers might disapprove of the habit, it’s not right to try to force others to change their behavior. Voters rejected a 2002 proposal that would have raised taxes by 55 cents per pack. If the new proposal makes it onto the ballot next year, voters should reject it too, making it clear that in a free society, people have a right to smoke if they choose to. State government shouldn’t be using tax policy to manipulate smokers into changing their behavior.

Timothy B. Lee is an editor at the Show-Me Institute.

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