For true compassion & charity, vote NO on Boulder Ballot Issue 1A

Boulder County Ballot Issue 1A would increase property taxes for “county human services programs and for contracts with non-profit agencies maintaining a safety net for families and children in Boulder County.”

Support for measures convinces me that supporters of tax-funded and operated charities really do not care about the causes they supposedly support. Rather, supporting government charities are a way to shirk the responsibility to make sure your charitable donations is spent wisely. It’s more like phony compassion and making the appearance that you care. As I <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-t-schwartz/questioning-your-compassi_b_574030.html” target=”_blank”>wrote at the Huffington Post:

Why does being compassionate mean supporting government-run schools and health plans (or charitable causes)? This makes little sense if you view these programs as government-run charities. Would you agree to perpetually donate a portion of your monthly income to the same charity – regardless of its effectiveness? If the charity is doing a lousy job, wouldn’t you want the freedom to find a better one?

By supporting government-run charities like Medicaid and tax-funded schools, you relinquish this freedom. You could try to improve their performance through the political process. But this is grossly inefficient and ineffective compared to using on-line charity rating services to find a charity that deserves your donations.

Compulsory charity is also unfair:

Colorado HB 1365: bad gas for Coloradans

How much would you pay for cleaner air?  Surely this depends on its current state, the proposed improvement, and if you could tell the difference. The EPA wants you to pay for cleaner air by mandating pollution limits on power plants. Colorado HB 1365 would legislate how electric utilities do it. Xcel Energy supports the bill, and estimates a 4-6 percent increase in utility bills, writes Vince Carroll in the Denver Post.

Since Coloradans have varying preferences for air quality and how much they’d pay to improve it, legislating a one-size-fits-all solution is not the best policy. As summarized in the book Free Market Environmentalism, courts heard common law nuisance cases concerning air pollution for years before the Clean Air Act. Polluters would compensate plaintiffs for demonstrated damages. Threats of costly lawsuits would encourage companies to reduce emissions.

If governments must legislate pollutants levels, they should let polluters find the most cost-effective ways to meet requirements. Otherwise, politicians will dictate political solutions that benefit their careers and favored lobbies at taxpayers’ expense.

House Bill 1365 smells like a political solution. It would require electric utilities using coal-fired power plants to submit “emission reduction plans.” The plan must give “primary consideration to replacing or repowering coal-fired electric generators with natural gas and to also consider other low-emitting resources.”

Indeed, politicians have subsidized the coal industry. But this does not justify subsidies or favors for their competitors. Instead, removing existing subsidies and let energy producers compete on their own merits.

This commentary was published in the Daily Camera (Boulder) on April 10, 2010.

The link to the Free Market Environmentalism book is to Google Books.  Most of the chapters are there, but the one on pollution , Chapter 10, is not.  Relevant references in the chapter include: Bruce Yandle, Bootleggers, Baptists, and Global Warming.  Check out his author page at the Property and Environment Research Center for more articles on common law and environmental issues. Also check out Indur Goklany’s work on air pollution and the Clean Air Act.

Boulder Ballot Issue 1B: Follow the money to the “Worthy Causes”

Update to: “Worthy Cause Tax”: It’s not Your Penny to Give.

In a letter published in the Boulder Daily Camera, Rich Miller writes:

Citizens for a Worthy Cause sent out a glossy mailing this past week, encouraging voters to approve Boulder County 1B.  Issue 1B will continue an existing sales tax and allow county commissioners to distribute our tax dollars to the charities of their choice. … And who are these Citizens for a Worthy Cause? No individual citizens contributed, only non-profits who stand to benefit from 1B at our expense.

Rich Miller has made an excellent insight. (Ralph Shnelvar has also noticed.)

Ten of the fifteen organizations that donated to Citizens for a Worthy Cause have received revenue from this sales tax.  These ten organizations have donated almost $27,000 to extend the tax this year, and have received more than $1.8 million in sales tax revenues from previous years.  I flush out the details below. (As Rich also did in his on-line comments.)

In a previous article I made the case that Ballot Initiative 1B, which would extend the “Worthy Cause” sales tax, “is immoral — regardless of how worthy the causes are.”  As a compulsory charity, “it is intolerant to people’s values and unfair to charities that must earn our donations. It undermines both the responsibility of donors and the accountability of non-profits that receive forced donations.” Those who voted for the measure could have raised the money in this year’s Worthy Cause Fund had they each donated $50.  Instead, they force us all to donate.

Colorado’s Secretary of State office lists the contributors to Citizens for a Worthy Cause here.  Boulder County lists the recipients of the tax revenues here.   What follows are the dollar figures for each organization, and links to where you can make a voluntary donation.

Ballot Issue 1B: “Worthy Cause” Tax, It’s Not Your Penny to Give

The Daily Camera published my article on the 2008 Boulder County Ballot Issue 1B today. (print version)

Update: The so-called “Citizens for a Worthy Cause” that support this are really the very organizations that receive the tax revenue.  See here.

Ballot Issue 1B: It’s not Your Penny to Give
by Brian T. Schwartz

Would you call the police on someone who didn’t donate to a charity that you consider to be a “worthy cause”?  If not, then you should oppose County Issue 1B in this November’s election, which would extend the so-called “Worthy Cause” sales tax.  This tax is immoral — regardless of how worthy the causes are. It is compulsory charity, or charity at gun-point. It is intolerant to people’s values and unfair to charities that must earn our donations. It undermines both the responsibility of donors and the accountability of non-profits that receive forced donations.

Face the State on health care reform critiques

Face the State published an article summarizing the criticisms of Colorado’s “Blue Ribbon” Commission on Health Care Reform. I am mentioned in it:

The commission’s majority recommendations come after the panel rejected 31 other proposals submitted for consideration in 2007. Brian Schwartz, a Boulder-based optical engineer, saw his proposal nixed.On his Web site, Schwartz writes, “regarding health care reform, Bill Ritter claims to ‘refuse to throw more money at a problem without addressing the root causes of the crisis.’ Unfortunately, the 208 Commission on Health Care Reform does exactly that.”

quoted in Colorado Springs Gazette

I was quoted in in the January 4 Editorial in the Colorado Springs Gazette. Here’s the quote:

Brian Schwartz, an Arvada-based optical engineer, proposed to the Blue Ribbon Commission a market-based health care reform package that mostly involved deregulation. Commission member Linda Gorman fought for it, but others scoffed.

“One commissioner said we already have a free market in health care, and it has failed,” Schwartz told The Gazette. “But we don’t have a free market. If you’re a widow, you have to buy a policy that covers marital therapy, maternity and prostate cancer. You have no need for this, but if you want insurance you’re required to buy it. Mandates raise your premium by 20 to 50 percent.”

I actually live and work in Boulder.  Close enough.   I obviously think health care is an important issue, and I’m happy that the editor Wayne Laugesen committed an article to it.

A scan of the print edition is here.

“Should we have single-payer food and housing?”

Yesterday I was quoted in a Rocky Mountain News article about a health care reform meeting in Boulder:

Though the tide at the Boulder meeting was decidedly toward single-payer, commissioners were quick to point out that the sentiment might be different as they solicit public comments throughout the state.And at least one speaker, Brian Schwartz, proposed getting government out of health care entirely – calling Medicaid a “failure” and an example of why single-payer won’t work. Instead, he advocated the free-market system.

“Should we have single-payer food and housing?” he asked. “Didn’t we settle that with Soviet Russia and North Korea? Why is health care different?”

I’ve posted a PDF of the print edition here.

If you care about children, phase out SCHIP

To my pleasant surprise, the Boulder Daily Camera printed a few of my comments about the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (“SCHIP”) that I’d posted on their Virtual Editorial Board [pdf of print edition]. I simply pulled quotes from a Cato Institute brief by Michael Cannon, Sinking SCHIP.

Government control bad for your health

Last week the Rocky Mountain News published an opinion piece I wrote summarizing my case for free-market health care reforms. A scan of the print edition is here.

The 208 Commission is spending your tax dollars to inject poison into our health-care system — the very same poison already crippling it: government controls over your medical choices. These controls chain you to your employer’s health plans, prohibit the sale of affordable insurance policies and allow Medicaid to provide lousy health care while perpetuating poverty.

Because the tax code exempts employer-provided health insurance, but not other types, you’re essentially stuck with your employer’s high-cost nonportable choices. Hence, insurance companies can afford to be stingy and deny you care; they know that losing you as a customer requires that you change jobs.

More media appearances on health care policy

First, I was quoted in this Denver Post article about a report critical of Health Savings Accounts:

HSAs are an effective way to manage health care costs through the use of high-deductible insurance, said Brian Schwartz, a Boulder engineer who has proposed a free-market insurance initiative to a state commission studying health care reforms.Placing tax-deductible deposits in a health savings account allows individuals to “save money and use it when you really need it,” Schwartz said.

I elaborate on this in a “eLetter” at the Denver Post site:

Health Savings Accounts offer fairness and choice to rich and poor. The tax code’s discounting employer-based insurance is unfair. It ties us to our employer’s expensive non-portable policies and hence limits insurance companies’ incentive to satisfy patients.Imagine you want a more economical insurance plan. A less expensive plan could save you $50 per month, which you could save for medical expenses without your insurance company interfering. But since you’ll be taxed on this investment, you’re left with much less. To avoid this penalty, you’ll probably keep the expensive plan, hence wasting money on premiums instead of saving for medical expenses in the future.

Health Savings Accounts are the first step in eliminating this injustice. If a qualified high-deductible insurance plan is best for you, you can invest income saved on premiums in a tax-free HSA – equivalent to a 401(k) plan for medical expenses.

Since the tax code should not discriminate between money spent on health care or health insurance, HSAs should be available to anyone, regardless of their insurance policy. Further, to free us from our tax-preferred employer-based plans, we should be able to buy health insurance with funds from our Health Savings Accounts.

Michael Cannon at Cato talks about using HSA funds to purchase insurance here and in more detail here.

I was also references in this article about SCHIP (“Medicaid for kids,” get them addicted to government early).