Ross Kaminsky writes:
Like many Coloradans, I received a robo-call supporting Proposition 103, in which the disembodied female supporter describes 103 as a “five-year time out from school cuts.” Nowhere does the robo-call mention the huge ($3 billion) tax hike that 103 actually represents.
Read the rest of his post: Colorado Prop 103 deception.
Ross posts a video where Kelly Maher plays a recording of the deceptive phone call:
The Denver Post has published my op-ed in opposition to Colorado Proposition 103. It begins:
Do you want government to throw even more of your tax dollars at Colorado teachers unions and their pet politicians, or do you actually want better education for children in Colorado?
Proposition 103 is about throwing money. Sponsored by Rep. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, and endorsed by Colorado’s largest teachers union, the initiative would increase income tax rates by 8 percent and sales tax rates by 3.4 percent — both for five years.
But decades of increasing school funding has not increased student test scores. It has created jobs for teachers and revenue for their unions that almost exclusively support Democratic politicians. These politicians sustain tax-funded schools as a monopolistic cartel that squashes competition and limits choice for parents and taxpayers.
Read the rest of the article at the Denver Post: Proposition 103 is about more money for the teachers union.
Thanks to Ben Degrow for pointing me to data sources, and to Ari Armstrong for suggesting key revisions.
For some of the references in the article, see this post: Colorado Proposition 103: More tax dollars for schools does not improve kids’ education.
If passed, Colorado Proposition 103 (ballot text) would increase state sales and incomes taxes for the alleged purpose of sending the additional revenue to government-run schools. But it’s doubtful that throwing more tax dollars at government schools actually improves education for kids.
Consider per-pupil spending, as documented by the National Center for Education Statistics. It shows that, in constant dollars, per-pupil spending has doubled between 1973 and 2008.
[Graph source: Another Government Bailout, downsizinggovernment.org]
What has happened to standardized test scores during that time? NationsReportCard.gov has this data. This page shows results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in math for 17-year-olds. The finding? “At age 17, the average score in mathematics in 2008 was not significantly different from the scores in 2004 and 1973.”
How about reading? Continue reading
The Colorado Union of Taxpayers has a nice flyer (pdf) summarizing some positions against Colorado Proposition 103 (ballot text) which would increase state sales & income taxes in the name of “education”:
State Senator Rollie Heath has put a major tax increase measure on the November 2011 ballot. The money would raise state income taxes and state sales taxes. Heath says that his tax increase will help the public schools, but nothing in his proposal requires that one penny of the new taxes actually be used for public schools. Get the facts from this flyer produced by Too Taxing for Colorado, the citizens organization leading the fight against the Heath tax increase.
Via Ari Armstrong.
This article was printed in the Boulder Daily Camera on September 10, 2011 in response to this question:
What do you think will help decrease unemployment and underemployment? What role do you think the government can, or should, play in encouraging job growth?
Space aliens attack! Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman says we need scientists to “fake an alien threat.” ”A massive buildup to counter” the threat, real or not, would end the economic slump “in eighteen months,” he said. Dr. Krugman unwittingly shows how loony Keynesian economic “stimulus” schemes are.
As an EconStories rap explains: “If every worker was staffed in the army and fleet, we’d have full employment and nothing to eat. Jobs are a means, not the ends in themselves. People work to live better, to put food on the shelves. Real growth means production of what people demand. That’s entrepreneurship not your central plan.”
Repealing parts or all of last year’s health control law [HR 3590] would encourage real growth. One-third of small business owners sited the law’s requirements as the greatest or second greatest “obstacle to hiring more employees,” reports a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey. Three of four business owners “somewhat agreed” that the law “makes it harder … to hire more employees.”
For example, the law compels employers to buy insurance for full-time employees. In response, half of surveyed employers said they would “change their workforce strategy so that fewer employees work 30 hours or more a week,” reports Mercer consultants.
Is it merely coincidence that private-sector jobs growth stalled after health “reform” passed? Economist James Sherk shows that in the fifteen months before “reform,” average monthly job growth exceeded 67,000 jobs. Since then, it has plummeted to around 6,500 jobs per month. Don’t blame alien abductions.
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Thanks to Grace-Marie Turner for her article: Repealing Health Care Legislation Will Create Jobs. That’s where I first read about a few of the health care bill references above.
Milton Friedman explained that politicians “are in a business… competing with one another to get elected.” Electing the “right” people, said the renowned economist, “isn’t the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.” Or at least make it unprofitable to do the wrong things.
Term limits are one step toward this goal. Term-limited legislators tend to seek office to address issues rather than personal goals, and are more independent of party politics and rent-seeking interest groups. Term limits would create a legislature of, by, and for the people rather than ruling class of career politicians detached from the private sector. Several states limit legislators’ terms. The 22nd Amendment term-limited the President. U.S. Senators and Representatives should have similar term limits.
Another step is to restrain federal power by restoring state legislators’ influence on the federal government. For example, repealing the 17th Amendment would allow state legislatures to once again elect Senators.
James Madison noted that having different constituencies electing the House and Senate provides an “additional impediment … against improper acts of legislation.” As law professor Todd Zywicki notes, the 17th Amendment ushered in the era of legislation benefiting national special-interests at the expense of the people. For example, ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion threatens to bankrupt states.
Law professor Randy Barnett‘s “Repeal Amendment” is another way to restore checks and balances. It would empower two-thirds of states to repeal any federal law or regulation.
This originally was printed in the Boulder Daily Camera on August 13, 2011.
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Thanks to Amanda Teresi of Liberty on the Rocks for bringing the Friedman quote to my attention. Check out their video, above.
If I had a higher word limit, I would have mentioned making elections more competitive by removing ballot access restrictions and using a type of range or approval voting system.
The Daily Camera asks: Lawmakers in Washington continue to be divided about raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, which faces a deadline of Aug. 2, the day the Treasury Department says it will lose borrowing authority. Meanwhile budget talks regarding possible tax increases and debt reduction continue. What do you think?
My response:
Debt ceiling? What debt ceiling? ”In the last 10 years, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 10 times,” notes economist Veronique de Rugy.
The real problem is excessive government spending that has created the huge debt. Spending has increased more than 60% in the past ten years. ”43 cents of every dollar spent is borrowed,” de Rugy estimates. According to USDebtClock.org, the federal debt exceeds $46,000 per U.S. citizen.
This spending is unsustainable and hazardous. The Congressional Budget Office warns of ” lower income growth” and risk of a “sudden fiscal crisis” that requires “spending cuts or tax increases more drastic and painful than those that would have been necessary had the adjustments come sooner.” Taxation and government borrowing crowds out investment in private capital. This diverts “resources that could be used more productively. … U.S. companies are less likely to build new plants, conduct research, and hire people,” de Rugy explains.
As a remedy, Reason magazine suggests a “19 Percent Solution,” which refers to typical levels of tax revenue relative to GDP. The plan would balance the budget without raising taxes by reducing spending by less than 4% annually for ten years.
Since entitlement programs drive much of federal spending, these cuts will be unlikely so long as people see the programs as moral. But as forced charity, these entitlement programs are immoral. Charity can be virtuous, but there’s no virtue in being forced to donate to a charity, or empowering politicians to force others to do so.
This was originally published in the Boulder Daily Camera on July 16 2011.
A movement against red light traffic cameras “appears to [be] gaining traction across the country,” reported MSNBC last week. Boulder officials want to add more red light cameras. Is this a good idea?
Say an intersection has an abnormally high rate of red light violations. Using red-light cameras puts blame on the drivers. But this seems unfair, as the same drivers also use safer intersections nearby. It’s more reasonable to first look for deficiencies in signal timing, visibility of signals, signs, and lane markings.
To encourage such solutions, the National Motorists Association offers a “$10,000 Ticket Camera Challenge” for intersections with high red light violations. The NMA guarantees “a minimum 50-percent reduction in red-light violations through the application of engineering solutions” or it will “pay the community $10,000 [for] any traffic safety program or project it chooses.”
Traffic cameras are also legally questionable, as defendants cannot confront their accuser. A California Superior Court Judge recently struck down eight cases of alleged red light running for these reasons. “Defendants here are entitled to be confronted with the testifying witness at trial,” she wrote.
As for effectiveness, data from the Boulder’s Transportation division shows decreased accidents at intersections after camera installations. But other factors could have been relevant. For example, changes in signal timing, all-red durations, and traffic volume. Further, there was no mention of how accident rates changed at intersections without cameras.
These shortcomings are typical of red light traffic camera studies showing benefits. A report by the Transportation Research Board states: “In many cases, the flaw in the analysis was the lack of a proper control group.” In some cities, traffic accidents increased after the addition of cameras, as the NMA’s website documents.
A version of this article was printed in the Boulder Daily Camera on July 2, 2011.
How Boulder County finances its trail maintenance is unjust. The county sales tax forces people to finance hiking trail maintenance, whether or not they use them. Meanwhile, people who don’t shop in Boulder County can use trails without paying. The County should strive to replace tax-funded trails with user fees and sponsorships.
As a type of user fee, parking fees and annual parking passes for cars registered in other counties are a step in the right direction. The assumption is that a typical hiker coming from outside Boulder County pays less county sales tax than a trail user who resides in the county. The parking fee is an attempt to resolve this difference.
A drawback is that the fee makes some out-of-county hikers “pay twice.” Meanwhile, the sales tax still forces county residents who do not use trails to fund other people’s recreation. To resolve this, the County should both decrease taxes and extend trailhead parking fees and passes to cars registered in the county.
In addition to user fees, corporate sponsorship of trails is another way to raise revenue through voluntary means. The Continental Divide Trail Alliance does this. Since 2009, REI has contributed more than $15,000, while Home Depot, Salomon, Coleman, and Smartwool have each contributed more than $1,000. Trailhead maps and direction signs along the trail could identify sponsors: “This trail is maintained by a generous donation by …” and include the sponsor’s logo — tastefully sized of course.
A version of this article was printed in the Boulder Daily Camera on Saturday, June 18, 2011.
Rachel Maddow describes how great projects like the national debt are accomplished. She feels the individual alone is not capable of accomplishing a 14 trillion dollar debt. Government is the only way to accomplish such a large task.
For more, see Mothers Against Debt.
