Local Government Staffer: I won't Cut
The federal government certainly has its wasteful spenders, from Senator Robert Byrd (D-Byrdland, aka, West Virginia) on down. State governments, as I have detailed at various times on this site, have gone on a spending binge in the 1990s.

But the spending epidemic occurs at the local level, too--even in solidly Republican cities and counties that have a reputation for fiscal prudence. My own city of residence, for example, has an elaborate water park that rivals many a commercial venture.

The county, meanwhile, is set to increase its own budget by nearly 6 percent, even though inflation is nearly non-existent. According to a report in a local suburban newspaper, county commissioners committed themselves to keeping the next year's budget to "under 6 percent." The final result was-no surprise, perhaps--a 5.99 percent increase.

What happened? The board chairman, Will Branning, polled fellow board members, asking how much of an increase they would support. No one gave a solid number, only "under 6 percent." Banning then told staff to prepare several possible budgets, all keeping budget increases to "under 6 percent." Patricia Bataglia, whom the paper describe as "frustrated," said "I did not agree to 5.9 and neither did Kathleen [Gaylord] and We spoke to that issue. I asked for options, I didn’t ask for a 5.9.”

It looks like she was given one option--the highest possible spending increase. Says another board member, "as I watched the process it seemed too much like staff setting up the board and the board was sort of taking it.”

Particularly noteworthy was in this episode was the inability of county staff to think creatively in ways to save money, as directed by a few of the commissioners (the group of people are, by the way, are allegedly the boss of county workers). One commissioner "kept encouraging innoation, offering ideas and potentials for partnering and prioritizing."

So what was the response of the people who are supposed to be taking, not giving the orders?

Staff responses ranged from taking notes regarding the elected officials’ suggestions, to detailing how certain approaches wouldn’t work ....

County administrators are apparently so used to getting seeing their budgets grow and grown that anything else is literally unthinkable. Tom Novak, apparently a long time government hack and director of the Public Services and Revenue department, told the commission of his pro-spending bias. He

said the budget was “going to be devastating” to a “great county” and later added his thoughts on budget cuts, stating, “I’m not advocating any cuts in government — that’s not my style. I’m not for spending less.”

In fairness to Mr. Novak, it's possible he is only expressing his own opinion, and is willing to be a good soldier and do as ordered, no matter what he thinks of the order. But that's not the impression I get from this account.

And I thought the responsibility of an administrator was to carry out the directives of those who make policy. Then again, public choice theory, which tells us that bureaucrats will tend to do things that enhance, not reduce, their budgetary power, warned us about this a long time ago.

The blame does not lie entirely with the staff. Commissioners should have specified more than one number, as in "give us a budget with no spending increase, and others with 2, 4, and 6 percent," or something like that. Allow those whose livelihood and outlook depends on the maintenance and expansion of government spending too much leeway, and you'll be pushed towards ever-increasing government.
(permalink)

Faith Cuts Crime
One serious problem with criminal justice is the high rate of recidivism. That is, ex-cons who return to society are highly likely to be repeat offenders. In short, "rehabilitation" usually doesn't work, and the threat of further imprisonment doesn't much of a deterrent.

Another approach is to pursue rehabilitation through faith-based rehabilitation. That's what Prison Fellowship does through its InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI). This, which Prison Fellowship operates in several states, features education, Bible study, and community service while in prison, and and an after-release requirement of employment and church attendance.

The Manhattan Institute has just published a review of how IFI has worked in the state of Texas. The results are promising: when matched with prisoners of similar age, offense, race, and other factors, IFI graduates were 50 percent less likely to be arrested again. The 59-page report is available in PDF.

The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com comments on the inevitable constitutional challenge to programs that involve religion:

All this, no doubt, will be profoundly discomforting to those who like the results but don't like the religion; a similar program in Iowa is already being sued by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. But the question is joined: Can you achieve the positive social outcomes of faith-based programs if you strip out the faith?

As Penn's John DiIulio reminds us, the positive findings about the InnerChange Freedom Initiative parallel more than 500 other studies showing that the "faith factor" often makes faith-based programs more effective than their purely secular counterparts.

To put it another way, critics of the faith-based approach may claim that their only issue is with religion. But if these results are any clue, increasingly the argument against such programs requires turning a blind eye to science.

Of course, in government programs, efficiency is not always the most important consideration.
(permalink)

Buckeye Blog
The Buckeye Institute, a fine think tank in my old city of Columbus, has started a blog on state government in Ohio.
(permalink)

State legislator seeks to ban superstores
The alleged ills of suburbia include not only social alientation ("bowling alone") and "suburban assault vehicles" (SUVs) but the character-destroying menace of superstores. Superstores are those places where one can buy hardware, clothes, households goods, and groceries in one place.

While regional stores such as Meijer in the western Great Lakes region predominate, Wal-Mart SuperCenters are the leading examples on a national scale. There certainly are things I don't like about living in suburbia, but life's full of choices, and at this point, the good exceeds the bad.

The Mackinac Center publishes my take on a proposal to ban superstores, which combines the aesthetic sensibilities of Those Who Would Design Life for the rest of us, and the economic self-interest of grocery story unions.
(permalink)

Overspending, not Mandates. Cause Problems for State Budgets
The Heritage Foundation reviews state spending habits:
- General fund revenues have climbed 46 percent since 1990.
- General fund spending hasi ncreased 50 percent
- State spending has increased at twice the rate of federal spending
- State spending, collectively, now exceeds $1 trillion.

States plead poverty from unfunded mandates from Washington. But as Brian M. Riedl. a fellow at Heritage, points out, there have been only two major unfunded mandates since 1996, which have cost the average state less than 0.09 percent of its budget. In other words, the recent shortfalls in the states cannot be blamed on anything recently done in Washington. He uses data from a Congressional Budget Office report. The CBO annually tallies the cost of mandates.

States chafe under the restrictions of federal programs. "When Washington instead requires that federal dollars be used only for federally approved purposes, states feel cheated." So Riedl suggests that states opt out of some programs that allow for a state opt-out, such as the No Child Left Behind Act. But as Michael Greve explained last month (reviewed here), the incentives from Washington distort the political process in the states, giving a bias towards increased spending that is hard to cut in downturns.
(permalink)

Free Government Money! Become an Indian!
George Neumayr reports on the latest public-private partnership: Indian casinos.

Last year in California, where Indian tribes pay no state or local taxes on gaming, five new casinos opened, bringing the total to over 50. Indian gaming revenue is now in the ballpark of $4 billion. Much of this money flows to a small network of hucksters who live not on poverty-stricken reservations but in gilded mansions. And millions of these profits go back to the politicians who let these casinos clog and corrupt the state.

In most states, Indian tribes have a policy advantage in getting the right to host a casino. The result, though, is sometimes ridiculous, with in at least one case, a "tribe" consisting of one woman.

It's not fair to be too hard on the Indians, who as a group are genuinely poor. If they find a way to improve their lot, good for them. But the Indian gambling industry has the smell of favoratism and political corruption to it. At the end of this year's legislative session in Minnesota, it was sometimes heard that the greatest accomplishment of the DFL (what we call the Democrats here) was to keep the Republicans from passing a proposal to add slot machines to race tracks, which would threaten the legal monopoly on gambling held by the Indian casinos. (The Indians, in turn, are large donors to the DFL.) Protecting the business interests of gambling operations as a great accomplishment? What a comedown for the party of Hubert Humphrey.
(permalink)

Churlish Neighbor Brings Law Down on 6 Year-Old's Lemonade Stand
In Naples, Florida, a 6-year old girl was doing what children in this country have always done: set up a lemonade stand on a summer afternoon. Then the cops came and shut her down. One of the officers at the scene said, in effect, we're just doing our job.

Police acted after directed by city hall, which said that the girl was operating a business without a licence. Said a city official, "Normally we don't get involved in it but once we do get a formal request we must take action." The formal request came from ... a neighbor. There's no mention in the story of whether or not the neighbor first talked witih the girl or her parents about any complaints arising from the kiddie business.

Happily, city officials did the sensible thing, and granted a license to the child, and without a fee, to boot. At least she didn't have to call in the anti-regulatory litigators at the Institute for Justice.
(permalink)

Grrrl Power
Concern over the status of women is the source of many policies at all levels of government (including schools), and in corporate America, too. Here's a sign that things are better than thought: women outnumber men in college. According to a report by the Business Roundtable, noted in the (suburban Chicago) Daily Herald,

"The Growing Gender Gaps in College Enrollment and Degree Attainment" study found women outpace men by about 28 percent in enrollment in colleges and stay to graduate more often. The graduation totals for women outpace men by 51 percent at community colleges and 33 percent at four-year institutions.

The gap means that women will routinely have a higher level of education than men in the workplace.

Since more education tends to result in higher income, belief in the famed (but overstated) "wage gap" may some day be put to rest.
(permalink)

Raising Taxes, Again
More proofs that "Republican" does not necessarily mean "lower taxes"--Ohio, where the House, Senate, and Governor's office are controlled by Republicans--is set to increase the state sales tax again. Of course, this is to deal with a budget deficit--brought on my ever-expanding spending over the last decade.
(permalink)

Life's Little Nuisances and Government Rules
There are many differences between the town I lived in 10 months ago and where I live now: definitely upscale there, not so much here; sidewalks there, not here; and, a heavy factor on the "plus," side, no family there, but family here.

But there is one other feature of my old town that I miss: the peace and quiet of being in my house. Here, by contrast, I deal with a steady stream of door-to-door strangers, peddling religious beliefs, magazine subscriptions, and frozen meat out of the back of a truck. Ok, so I broke down once and gave a box of macaroni and cheese mix to some teenagers who said they were collecting items for a food bank. But otherwise, the peddlers get annoying.

Writing in the St. Paul Pioneer Dispatch, columnist Joe Soucheray makes a few comments:

Now that the weather is turning warmer, the birds are tweeting and the flowers are blooming, the driveway scam artists are out in their customary legions. ... By "driveway scam" I mean that here they come, up the driveway

Soucheray explains how he questions the peddlers (if you're doing this as part of a program, who's running it?) and scares off many with a one-size-fits-all line ("I need a receipt for tax purposes.")

In my old town, I hardly ever got door-to-door solicitations--at least not for frozen meat or pre-paid oil changes (I've received two of each.) Why? Perhaps the famed "Minnesota Nice" makes it hard for people here to "Just say no" to peddlers. But I suspect that government policy plays a role. In my old town, commercial vendors had to register with the local government. It's enough of a barrier, apparently, to discourage peddling. This is one government intervention I don't mind. Hypocrite? Perhaps, but at the least, it isn't an act of playing favorites among businesses, which is what traditional forms of local regulation (zoning) have become.
(permalink)

Maybe there is Horse Sense in Government
When I type in www.stateline.COM to get to the excellent site with news from across the states, and about state government, I get redirected to a www.horseweb.com, the "resource gallery for horses for sale and horse classifieds ...." What this means, I don't know. The correct address, of course, is www.stateline.ORG.
(permalink)

Governors Strike Back at Charges of Frivolity
From Stateline. Actually, the two governors interviewed here--an R and a D--don't say much except to dismiss the suggestion (made by Grover Norquest and Stephen Moore) that bankruptcy is an option for states.
(permalink)

Do States Need Great Productivity?
David Hogberg, publisher of the Cornfield Commentary, rips a BusinessWeek article which contends that state government spending is not out of control.

Michael J. Mandel, author of the B-W article, excludes from his analysis public education (K-12 plus higher ed) and criminal justice. Further, he looks only at employee compensation costs, not all costs. Hogberg writes:

Given that public education (excluding higher ed) and criminal justice constitute almost 53% of said employees, it's a bit like saying expenses for Major League Baseball haven't grown that much in the last 10 years if you exclude salary costs.

If, however, the growth in the state's spending for 1992-2000 (the year of Mandel's analysis), had been restrained, we would be looking at a much brighter budget picture now. If state spending growth had grown only at the rate of inflation (plus population growth, to account for an increasing number of people to served), states would have a surplus of over $102 billion. Instead, they face a collective debt of $85 billion.

While productivity growth of employees may have some effect on the budget, the largest cause of budget troubles, by far, is the decision of many policy makers to spend like every year was 1999.
(permalink)

Conceal Carry in Ohio
Conceal carry legislation is being debated in Ohio, which may become the latest state to liberalize the requirements for carrying a concealed weapon. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a series of stories that trace this development back to lower court rulings that found existing prohibitions unconstitutional.
(permalink)

Aided by Deregulation, Upstart Airlines Revive Old Airport
The suburban Chicago Daily Herald reports that Midway Airport, on the city's south side, is thriving.

While the rest of the aviation industry is struggling, Midway is thriving. Airline traffic nationwide was down last year, but Midway handled the most passengers it's ever served: 17 million, a 9 percent increase over 2001. O'Hare had nearly 67 million passengers, down about 1 percent.

Why? Two words: Southwest Airlines. The low-cost, point-to-point airline has made Midway its midwest home.

Well, it's more than that, of course. Not only is the airport served by Southwest--the only major airline to show a profit last year--but ATA, a mini-Southwest.

Some passengers call Midway better at customer service, "from accommodating people with handicaps to holding planes for late connecting flights."

A recently reconfiguration of the small terminal makes the place a lot more attractive, and the food court featuring outposts of Chicago institutions (Potbelly subs, for example), is nice.

The key to the story though, is what the federal government did--or rather, didn't do:

It opened in 1927 and was the world's busiest airport from 1941 to 1959. Then the much larger O'Hare opened and took the crown, leaving Midway abandoned mostly to small private aircraft in the 1960s and '70s.

Then in 1978, deregulation allowed new airlines to start serving new destinations.

The Reason Public Policy Institute has many fine reports--including this one--about how turning over airport operations and management to private companies can improve air travel. Unfortunately, much of the momentum to involve the private sector more often was stopped cold by 9/11, and the knee-jerk reaction to federalize as much as possible.

I am pleased to see the fortunes of this small airport revived, but I avoid it whenever I can--because of government policies, and they way they are implemented. Flying in is fine, but flying out makes me feel that I'm in a quasi-totalitarian state. There are more security checkpoints there than at other airports I've been to, and the screeners there seem more thuggish. Perhaps I would feel better about it all if I didn't take my laptop with me; they're always wanting to plaster a sticker on its sleek case, and someone is usually bleating "remove all laptops from all bags. Remove all laptops from all bags." It just gives me the sense that so much of this is "security" just for the sake of appearances (wanding 70 year old grandmothers, etc.)
(permalink)

Medicaid Reform: Sooner or Later
As part of the recently enacted "tax cut" package agreed to by Congress and President Bush, states will receive $10 million to spend on their medicaid programs. But as stateline.org reporter Erin Madigan, that is a pittance.

Trudi Matthews, chief health policy analyst at The Council of State Governments says that this money is "a real boon to states," since it will allow them to "stave off cuts for a little while longer."

The lowest-income of people have been spared cuts, but their dependency on tax money only shows how poorly the system serves them. The least that should be done is to give those on Medicaid some power over how the money is spent. The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and Buckeye Institute have created one possible solution to the long-term problem of artificially low reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals, soaring budgets for states, and health care inflation.
(permalink)

Parents Jump at Educational Choice
Last year, the state of Ohio mandated intradistrict school choice--open enrollment within a school district on a "space available" basis. Now, the Akron Beacon-Journal reports, one school has been so popular that some folks are complaining about crowding at the school. Apparently parents know a good thing when they see it.

Better schools: build it and they will come. If you let them ....
(permalink)

What a Difference a Drive Makes
In Michigan, Governor Jennifer Granholm and the legislature have been in a dispute over road funding; the legislature wants to build more roads, while the governor wants to emphasize road maintenance.

Having driven [bump] many miles [thump] on Michigan's roads [what was that?], I can sympathize with Granholm.

She became more agreeable to building more roads after getting stuck in a Detroit-area traffic jam. According to the Detroit Free Press, the normally punctual governor arrived 45 minutes late at a meeting after getting stuck in traffic. Granholm, who has spent the last five years driving from Detroit to the state capital of Lansing, has this reaction: "We didn't realize how bad the traffic was going the other way."
(permalink)

I Only Know What I Read in the Papers
If that's the case, you ought to reconsider. So much has been made in recent weeks over the various scandals of the New York Times--making up stories, using uncredited writers, and such--that I won't belabor the point.

WordSpy spots the origin of new words or phrases. Perhaps sometime we will see a new term that has come from the riches of embarassments that the Times has experienced.

Blogger Eric Berlin offers a quick tutorial on "Dowdification," or malicious editing of a person's remarks.
(permalink)

Old News: Lottery Players are Poor
The Bangor News of Maine analyzes spending patterns on the lottery for that state, and come up with an unsurprising conclusion: lottery players are disproportionately poor.

Per capita spending on the lottery was $105 in the state's wealthiest county, but $160 for the poorest.

Maine is now selling a $10 version of the lottery. Even the owner of a store that sells these pricey tickets says "To me, it's like taking $10, lighting it on fire and throwing it in the garbage."

Hey, if you want to, I suppose. But the state ought to get out of the business, which is hardly a vital public interest.
(permalink)

Streamlining Elections
In Michigan (and perhaps other states) elections for government-owned schools are held in June--to meager turnout. Not only does this make those elections more vulnerable to manipulation by a small but dedicated group, it costs more. Hoping to produce some economy of scale, Michigan's Secretary of State has proposed consolidating elections to four days in given year.

Sure, elections are critical to democracy. But we don't need to have them all the time. We go six years, for example, between elections for each of a state's two seats in the U.S. senate. Some minor consolidation in elections is a reasonable approach. But some members of government school boards don't like the proposal put forth by Terri Land. They say they want the flexibility to approach voters for more money whenever they need to. Perhaps they ought to, instead, manage their (our) money better.
(permalink)

Public and private diversity
Ever notice? Private groups are not allowed to discriminate, but public entitities are allowed to?

A golf club in Georgia comes under intense media pressure for having an all-male membership policy. Private schools are accused of being the province of bigots and racists (though Catholic schools serve black children from low-income families much better than government-operated schools in the same area), allegedly excluding minorities. Bob Jones University was stripped of its tax exemption for its odious policy of forbidding interracial dating, which was seen not only as an impingement of student's freedom, but as a racist statement.

Government contracts and university admissions, on the other hand, follow a soft form of racism. "Soft" in that they don't exclude certain groups (like the "whites only" drinking fountains of old); instead, they bend the rules in favor of those determined to be in a favored class.

There's something odd about a situation when many private clubs are more dedicated to constitutional principles of equal protection and treatment than the government that is supposed to protected and defend the Constitution.
(permalink)

We're Diverse ... Except when we aren't
The "Diversity" industry isn't really diverse? That is, as implemented, most "diversity training" programs don't allow targeted participants (usually corporate employees) to opt out or get very far in criticizing the assumptions underlying such programs?

(permalink)

One Man's Legacy--the "diversity" industry
Any time now, the Supreme Court will issue its ruling on the Michigan case. The University of Michigan rates applicants according to a 150 point scale; (certain) minorities receive a 20 point "gimmie" as a matter of policy. (In case you're wondering, that's a 13 percent boost, or in academic terms, a full-letter grade.) The policy has been challenged on constitutional grounds.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some defenders of "affirmative action" think the U of M is making the wrong defense. It used to be that such programs were defended on the basis of past wrongs: to make up for institutional racism, race became a factor in hiring and admissions decisions. As reporter Daniel Golden notes, though, the couirts have been scaling back this rationale, ruling that it is valid only if the institution awarding the preferences was itself guilty of racism in the past. Since "This university was racist" is a higher standard to meet than "Racism existed in society," the result could be the end of many programs.

Then a new defense came up, most suited for the university, but applied in the corporate world as well. Actually, it isn't such an old defense, going back (at laest) to the 1978 Bakke decision. And herein is the story of the power of one man. In Bakkee, the Supreme Court rejected racial quotas, and ordered the University of California-Davis to admit Allan Bakkee, a white applicant who claimed he had been discriminated against.

Four justices sided with UC-Davis, on the standard grounds of redressing past racial wrongs. But as often happens in Supreme Court decisions, one person--who casts the tie-breaking vote--has extradordinary power. Lewis Powell Jr., wrote "the atmosphere of speculation, experiment and creation so essential to the quality of higher education" was promoted by a diverse student population.

A Michigan graduate and defender of affirmative action rejects the diversity argument, saying that "The term 'diversity gets tossed around so much that it's offensive to students of color. It sounds as if we're just in college to enrich the education of white students."

The diversity defense can be questioned on two other fronts, the Journal cites critics. One, how does "diversity" contribute to the study of study of, say, physics? Second, why, if diversity is important, do diversity preferences include only blacks, Hispanics and Indians? Why not religious groups such as Muslims, Orthodox Jews, or Christian fundamentalists?

According to the Journal report, some advocates of affirmative action fear that the "diversity" approach is weak because it "suffers from flawed analysis and weak social-science research." The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is a good place to start looking at the flaws in the research.

As important as disputes over the research may be, there is something even more troubling. When court decisions, especially those from our highest court, depend on "social-science research" rather than a reading of constitutional principles, all sorts of mischief can happen.

Likewise, the pursuit of "diversity" has become such a major goal of schools that the pursuit of knowledge itself is compromised.

If a private business or organization wants to discriminate on its own--by creating a scholarship program only for the daughters of left-handed Norweigian bacheloer farmers, for example--fine. For government entitites--those part of that element of our society that administers justice--the logic ought to be very different: equal justice under the law.

Perhaps the best way out of the education morass is to fund students and not universities. That is, take the money appropriated to government-operated universities and put it on the back of students, who can carry the money to wherever they want, which may include universities that judge some things by race.
(permalink)