City ordinances set fares, require potential cab owners to start with a fleet of 10 cabs, limit cabs to less than 600 city-wide, and require cab companies to provide 24-hour service.

Market controls such as these and others are not justified and Kansas City should lift these ordinances so that new business models can thrive in the city. Read the entire op-ed here.

The post Op-ed: Excessive Regulation, Not Lyft, Needs To Stop Operating in Kansas City appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“Not” is such an important word. Consider the following sentence without the word “not”:

“Officer, I have [not] been drinking.”

We can all see the importance of “not.” That is why it is particularly unnerving that the Springfield News-Leader removed “not” in a key sentence in a recent op-ed that I penned.

Here is the passage:

Jonathan Shorman’s piece in the News-Leader reported that the Show-Me Institute requested funds to conduct research on these pension systems, “but has already determined the conclusions it plans to reach.” But that is [not] the case.

As you can see, the word “not” is integral in the meaning of my reply. With it, I’m denying Shorman’s claim; without it, I’m verifying the claim.

I hope the News-Leader’s error was poor editing, not malice. However, this is not the first time I have noticed, shall we say, inattention to detail. In the past year, the newspaper ran my photo with a byline that said I was running for Nixa School Board, which I did in 2006.

Whatever the reason for the mistake, I think it is important that Missourians have a chance to read my op-ed without the News-Leaders edits. You can do so by visiting the Show-Me Institute website.

For more information about problems with Missouri’s teacher pension systems, I suggest you also read “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul’s Defined Benefit Pension” and “Salary Spiking Boosts Pensions, But Cripples Taxpayers.”

The post Springfield News-Leader Does A Nice Job Editing…NOT! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Listen in at 9:30 a.m. this Wednesday when I discuss the Ozark TDD on the Morning Magazine with Manny Haley on KRMS radio in Osage Beach.

The post Show-Me Institute In The News appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On the opposite side, the Sierra Club held a rally yesterday in support of the earnings tax. It is not surprising to see people focus on the one or two issues that are important to them rather than trying to see the big picture and the long-term benefits (and costs) of a major change. People of all political persuasions do it regularly. But, if I may (and given that this is our blog, I think that I may) I’d like to respond briefly to the points raised in this sentence:

Chapter Director John Hickey said the Sierra Club believes recycling programs, parks upkeep, and energy-efficient building upgrades will be among the first services to be cut should the city lose the roughly $140 million a year from the 1 percent income tax.

My response:

1. Recycling, and trash in general, is at the top of the list of government functions that should be funded entirely by user fees, not general revenue. The city is already moving in this direction. Beyond that, trash services are a ripe opportunity for privatization.
2. Parks already have a dedicated sales tax in the city, a dedicated property tax for museums and the zoo in the city and county, and a dedicated property tax for recreation purposes in the city. These could well need to be raised to offset portions of the earnings tax elimination. Of all the things to worry about funding without an earnings tax, parks — with plenty of other dedicated revenue sources — should be very low on that list. If the city privatized the water division, for example, the substantial property it owns in the county (one treatment plant and one reservoir) would move onto the tax rolls, generating revenue that would further benefit the zoo-museum district.
3. Energy-efficient building upgrades make sense with or without the earnings tax, if they pay for themselves over the long run.

The post Op-Ed by David Stokes About the St. Louis Earnings Tax in the Post-Dispatch Yesterday appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When did $98,560 household income qualify for welfare in Missouri?

This is the new America. Everyone’s on welfare. I guess we have to get used to it.

The post Excellent Op-Ed in the Springfield News-Leader appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The only thing good about this op-ed is that it can serve as an excellent lesson in how not to do something. I don’t call it “bad” because I disagree with the author, although I do disagree vehemently with him. It is poorly written because, for whatever reason, it contains all the easy, worthless catch-phrases that instantly identify the author as being biased and operating from a pool of partisan emotions rather than reasoned thinking.

Take a very quick skim of the piece. The heavy use of loaded words and phrases like “cronies,” “greedy profiteers,” “huge stock options,” and “skimming the system” instantly let me know that I have no need to take the writer seriously. He clearly hasn’t put the time into writing the piece that might make it worth my time to read it carefully. (I did read it carefully anyway, but only for the purpose of this blog post.) I think the author uses the term “profiteers” three times in the op-ed to describe executives at insurance companies, as though he has the ability to judge the amount of profit that is proper.

If you want to convince people who are not already inclined to agree with you about something, try more of this:

For-profit insurance companies milk 30 percent off the top for “administrative” costs vs. just 4 percent for Medicare.

And far less of this:

We need both these options in the final bill to reign in greedy profiteers.

The first is an argument. The second is a screed. This op-ed has too much of the latter and too little of the former.

The post How Not to Be Taken Seriously When You Write an Op-Ed appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Its only purpose is to increase union membership, by making it easier for workers who want unions to win these votes. If you think the days of On The Waterfront are over, I need only point you to the tactics employed by unions in fire districts around the St. Louis area. You can find that information here and here.

Thanks to Combest for the original link, and to South County Truth Spot for the work they do covering the field in South St. Louis County.

The post Great Op-Ed in the Post About Unions and the Secret Ballot appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We were honored to have Wendell Cox agree to write a piece for us. His work is an inspiration to many people involved in think tanks around the world.

The post Low-Cost Op-Eds About High-Cost Light Rail appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

More O’Toole from this weekend on NPR, here. Thanks to my brother Mike for the link.

The post Light Rail Op-Ed By Randal O’Toole in the Post-Dispatch appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The county library has its headquarters and a branch near Kirkwood. They provide better service and parking, Allin said. The county library benefits from economies of scale — and its 14-cent tax rate is lower than the Kirkwood library’s, he said.

Liz Walker, my counterpart in Kirkwood, offers a number of retorts:

Liz Walker, chairwoman of the library’s trustees, on Thursday said the tax increase would preserve "a huge asset for all citizens of Kirkwood. It’s convenient, and it brings in people from all parts of the community."

I think that a having a public library in the heart of a downtown area really adds something to the area, such as in the University City Loop, Downtown St. Louis and Downtown Clayton.  I also think that the property tax increase proposal is going to be a victim of bad timing, coming a few months after voters approved another tax increase and a few days after voters will have received their property tax bills in the mail.  But speaking of timing, the voters and citizens of Kirkwood could always consider selling off their municipal utilitites, which would give the city and its taxing districts a number of options moving forward. (Thank you to the Missouri Political News Service for hosting my latest op-ed.)

The citizens of Kirkwood get to decide between some obvious choices: higher taxes and a quality library right in the heart of their downtown area, or lower taxes and a reduction in local libarary services, which may or may not be offset by the presence of two county libraries nearby. I am not going to presume to tell the voters of Kirkwood what they should do, but I look forward to following the debate and decision.

The post Kirkwood, Tax Rates, and a Well-Timed Op-Ed appeared first on Show-Me Institute.