GOP=Government Operated Programs
Stateline.org has another story on state finance, uncovering the latest crop of tax increase advocates: Republican governors. The list of governors is long:

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (income, property tax),
Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski (car rental tax),
Arkansas Gov. Mike Hucklebee (sales, cigarette),
Connecticut Gov. John Rowland (income, cigarette and sales tax),
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (cigarette tax),
Idaho Gov. Dick Kempthorne (sales, cigarette tax),
Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich (property tax),
Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (property, gambling, corporate fees),
Ohio Gov. Bob Taft (sales)
South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds (cigarette tax)
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (beer tax).

Perhaps these men have "grown" in office, or as we used to say, "gone native" in the bureaucracy. Or perhaps they are assessing the political climate, concluding that civil society has grown dependent on the state such that fundamental reform in spending is not politically possible.
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A Retreat in State Spending
Stateline.org reports that for the first time in 20 years, state fiscal spending will "shrink from one fiscal year to the next." Does this mean that government is being slashed and the tax burden is shrinking? Not exactly. As the story notes, "governors in 29 states proposing $17.5 billion in revenue increases. If enacted, this would be the largest total state tax increase since 1979."

Medicaid has in the last year or so finally gotten attention from policy analysts. It's bad health care, and it's also hideously expensive (these two facts are tied together by the fact that it's a government program.) Speaking of Medicaid, the executive director of the National Governors Association says ""It is now becoming, we would argue, the Pac-Man of state government. Which means it is eating up each additional dollar that can be generated in revenues."
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Just Like Sweden?
Didja ever notice? In the last 40 years, laws governing sexual behavior have loosened: Griswold v. Connecticut (establishing the "right to privacy"); Loving v. Virginia (laws against mixed-race marriages struck down); Roe v. Wade (establishing a right to abortion) and its successors (which included the conclusion that "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of human life."); and now, Lawrence v. Texas.

While the sexual liberty of Americans was increasing in those years, their economic liberty was decreasing, with government taking an ever-increasing share of the economy.

Just like Sweden. But with lower tax rates.
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A Depressing Week at the Supreme Court
First, the Supremes affirm affirmative action. Then, they strike down sodomy laws. In the affirmative action case, they enshrine unequal treatment of individuals as the law of the land. If anything, then, the US is more firmly down the road of ethnic separatism and capricious government than it was before the decision. And in the Texas sodomy case, the Court has seen fit, once again, to usurp the democratic process.

In its lead editorial today, the Wall Street Journal called this "A Roe v. Wade for Gay Rights." And they're right, of course. Both cases involve fundamental questions of morality, religion, and the role of the state. Both deal with highly contentious issues. In both areas of law (abortion and laws aimed against homosexual conduct), the country was already far down the road of liberalizing policy through the democratic process. Both cases involve social engineering. Finally, both cases stand rooted in the "right to privacy" doctrine not enunciated as a constitutional principle until Griswold v. Connecticut in 1956.

In its editorial, the Journal says

In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas calls the Texas anti-sodomy law "silly" and says he would vote to repeal it if he were a Texas legislator, as we would too.

The nine Justices are not legislators, however, and in deciding Lawrence they have once more usurped the electorate's right to find its own consensus on matters of social mores. The Court's opinion suggests that as those mores change the Justices have the power to reinvent the Constitution's privacy right along with it.
But why should nine--or six--Justices accrete this power to themselves? Such highly charged issues are better addressed by legislatures representing voters than by judicial edict. The genius of democracy is that it has the ability through debate to achieve consensus and settle these disputes over time.

The High Court's interventions only keep the cultural wars going.

Meanwhile, the folks over at Powelineblog call the Texas decision Amazing Disgrace for overturning long-held natural law understandings of homosexuality. Many libertarians, of course, are delighted to have one less "judgemental" law on the books.
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Internet Tax Avoidance: Not the Cause of State Budget Problems
Is the Internet taxed? Yes, and no.

No--Congress outlawed taxes on Internet taxes a few years ago.
Yes--At least 18 states imposes taxes on 'net access, say Sonia Arrison and William Simon Jr.

Are Internet transactions taxed? Yes, and no.
Yes--If a person buys something over the net from a company with a physical presence in the state, the seller collects taxes. (I just received a package from Staples.Com; there is a Staples store somewhere around here, so Staples.Com collects taxes from me).

No--If the company has no physical presence in the state (as is the case with most catalog operations and web sites such as Amazon), the buyer is supposed to pay "used tax," though that rarely happens.

The Direct Marketing Association reports that states themselves estimate that this "lost" tax revenue amounted to either $1.9 billion or $13 billion (there appears to be an editing error of one sort or another). Since California alone faces a budget deficit of $35 billion, leakage from unreported Internet sales is hardly the cause of state treasury woes.
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Sandra Day O'Conner and NASCAR
As I was driving this morning, I came saw three NASCAR-related window decals in the back of a cab of a pickup truck. One decal was a number, presumably of a famous NASCAR driver. Another said "I'm not tailgating, I'm drafting." While I had seen that one before, the third sticker was new to me: "I'm not speeding, I'm qualifying." While these stickers express the vehicle owner's love of the sport, they convey another message as well: "I may be breaking the law, but I have a very good reason for doing so."

While thinking of this message, I was reminded of this week's Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action. In upholding the use of race as a tool of govenrment policy (and indeed, advancing it), the court (or more accurately, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor) shared an attitude with the NASCAR-loving motorist. O'Connor admitted that affirmative action was (at best) problematic in light of the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection under the law. But she also expressed the idea that affirmative action was still necessary. In other words, "Affirmative action may be unconstitutional, but I have a very good reason for saying it ain't so."
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Profit = Evil
In Ohio, the "Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs" wants the state to secure, under threats of price controls, discounted drugs for the uninsured, and those with insurance but without prescription drug coverage.

It has obtained over 100,000 signatures in an attempt to force the legislature into enacting its ideas (or ultimately, force the issue to a public vote). PhRMA, the industry trade group, has challenged many of the signatures in an attempt to derail the petition effort.

The coalitions' ideas have been encapsulated in House Bill 166 and Senate Bill 14. The nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission describes the Senate version (slightly longer than the House version) in plain English.

The coalition is made up of industrial unions (AFL-CIO, UAW), government employe unions (AFSCME and the state teachers unions). To throw in some moral and "good governoment" weight, the coalition includes the Ohio Council of Churches and the League of Women Voters.

The logic of the coalition is thus:
a. Prescription drugs are important for the health and life of people who cannot afford them.
b. Drug companies have lots of money; they can cut their prices in half, easily.
c. Drug companies are evil for opposing us.

The answer, of course, is not to destroy the pharmaceutical industry, but to revamp tax policies and remove many of the regulations that inflate the costs of health care and health insurance.

But nah, it's easier, and fun, to whip up union members and religious folk by whoopin' on evil corporations. Even if those same corporations are, in their production of life-saving cures, more worthy public servants than politicians and their supporters who peddle ignorance, envy, and self-righteousness.
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Private Ferry Boat to Face Government-Backed Competition
According to the Detroit News, " A federal agency has approved $14.5 million in loan guarantees for Lake Express LLC, a planned high-speed ferry" between Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Muskegon, Michigan. (They are the largest ports on the lake of either state.)

It's hard for non-midwesterners to appreciate the size of Lake Michigan. True, you can see its Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan shores if you're in an airplane flying over the extreme southern end of the lake. But take a boat out far enough, and you won't see land for a couple of hours.

There's already one company providing cross-lake service north of Milwaukee, between the small towns of Manitowoc (WI) and Ludington (MI). Unfortunately for the Lake Michigan Carferry Inc., of Ludington, this privately financed company will now be paying taxes that will help underwrite its competition.

The Mackinac Center, a think tank also based in Michigan, has repeatedly warned against this unfair and ill-advised practice. Lawrence W. Reed, for example, wrote back in April, the latest federal dependent

doesn’t want to take the risk itself for the debt it expects to incur to run the business it proposes. It wants to fob off much of that risk to taxpayers — millions of whom will never even see, let alone ride, one of its ferries

The U.S. Maritime Administration, which is giving Lake Express $14.5 million in loan guarantees, has been burned once before, when it had to pick up the tab for a failed $187 million venture elsewhere.

There are three possible outcomes of this latest act of government intervention in the private marketplace. One both Lake Michigan Carferry and Lake Express will succeed, and there will be two services crossing the lake in routes roughly 60 miles apart. A second is that Lake Express will fail, and feds will have to make good on a bad decision one more time. A third is that Lake Express will drive Lake Michigan Carferry out of business.

As someone with connections to both Michigan ports of Muskegon and Ludington, I'd like to see both ventures succeed (though obviously, with private money at stake). But contrary to the 1970s rock song, in this case, two out of three is bad.
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Chicago Suburb Stops Funding Beauty Pageant
The city of Oakbrook Terrace has decided to pull the plug on its $120,000 contribution to the Miss Illinois pageant. The pageant, which determines which woman will represent the state at the Miss America competition, has been hosted (and, I infer from this article in the Daily Herald, subsidized as well) by the city.

It's not that the Miss Illinois competition has been unsuccessful. Three women have gone on to win the Miss America title since 1990. But as the Oakbrook Terrace finance director puts it, "While the pageant is nice, it is not a necessity or a vital human service. We could no longer justify contributing the money to the pageant when other services needed to be funded."

Exactly. If only more governments would take heed, and restrict their spending to the essentials.
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Another Traffic Safety Shibboleth Falls
Taking some time out from his fine work in pressing the case for lower tax rates, Steven Moore comments on a US Department of Transportation report that injuries on the country's highways have reached their lowest rates, ever. Since the nationally mandated 55 mph speed limit was repealed in 1995, states have been free to set their own limits. And even though it reaches 80 mph in some areas, both fatality and injury rates have fallen--not the 6,400 extra fatalities forecasted by Ralph Nader, Joan Claybrook, and others. WIll these facts discredit the "trust government" crowd in which Nader and Claybrook run? Don't be on it.

Moore, by the way, calls the repeal--and letting states set their own speed limits based on local conditions--"one of the Republican Congress's enduring and under-appreciated accomplishments."
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Supreme Court Makes "A Pathetic Decision"
That's the reaction over at Powerlineblog. "Deacon," one of three contributors, predicts that yesterday's decisions will guarantee racially-charged politics indefinitely.

The Supreme Court's decisions actually ensure that race-based preferences will never disappear. . . . If today's black applicants are "200 point SAT handicaps" when they apply to the top colleges, the next generation will be 250 or 300 point handicaps. The soft bigotry of low expectations all but guarantees that blacks and Hispanics will never be able to compete on equal terms with whites.

There are multiple lessons to take away from this case, but here are three observations: vetting candidates to the court is important, but uncertain (O'Connor and Souter, nominated by Reagan and Bush I, respectively, made the difference). Two: conservatives "grow" in office--that is, turn more liberal, but liberals rarely return the favor. Three: The Bush administration is to be faulted for not pressing a full-throated brief against affirmative action in the brief it filed with the court.
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Untie Those Federal Money Strings
If Kentucky takes money from taxpayers in New York, though the federal budget, they must abide by rules established by the federal government for spending that money. Those rules may or may not be in agreement with how the people in Kentucky would want to spend the money, but that's one of the costs of free money.

In the same light was one of yesterday's Supreme Court decision. The court upheld a law that makes libraries install pornography filters as a condition of getting federal grants to pay for Internet wiring. Never mind the question of why taxpayers in Casper, WY are paying for 'net connections of libraries in Bilouxi, MS --that's just the latest example of federalism gone astray.

More interesting is the fact that at least one library system may refuse more federal money rather than comply. The Minneapolis public library system may forfeit $160,000 rather than install filters. Good for them, I guess, for standing up for their principles--though the principle seems to be "free porn for all" rather than any principled stand on federalism. The decision would come at an awkward time; the library is facing a budget shortfall, and is considering cutting down on operating hours. In effect, the library would be choosing to offer porn access during fewer hours over filters and more limited hours.

But even then, would-be porno viewers can't get a free look. The library system has a policy of asking those who are viewing porn on the screen to stop, or face expulsion from the building. So maybe the library head honchos do object to turning computer terminals into peep shows. In other words, they want to do the right thing, but don't like being told from Congress to do it. Admirable or not? I report, you decide.
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Free Markets, not Big Business
It's been said before, but worth repeating. From Alan Murray's "Political Capital" column in today's WSJ:

It's a mistake to confuse support for free-market capitalism with support for entrenched business interests; often, the two are directly opposed.

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More on the Supreme Court and Affirmative Action
From the lead editorial in today's Wall Street Journal:

A cynic might conclude that yesterday's decisions mean universities can still racially discriminate, as long as they're not too obvious about it.

Given the celebratory comments of universities, "cynic" may be the wrong word.
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A Temporary Racial Remedy?
Writing in the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web," James Taranto holds to the "Glass is half full" interpretation of the court's decisions. He says that the "practical effect of this pair of rulings will be to scale back the use of racial preferences by public colleges."

Worrisome, though, are two facts about the case. One, as Taranto notes, "diveristy" is now established as a legitimate rationale for public policy, a rationale that race-concious administrators will hide behind to, in effect, promote quotas. Two, the argument that affirmative action is yes, a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, but still must be excused, is noxious on its face. "We know this violates the constitution," is the spirit of the court's decision, "but trust us, it's going to last only a little longer, perhaps 25 years."

Yeah. A temporary government program. Add that to your lexicon of oxymorons.
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Racially-Divided Democracy Lives On
The Supreme Court has ruled that we live in a race-based society, and at least some bodies of government can at sometimes pick and choose among racial groups. More or less, that's what they said. It will take a while to sort out the implications; here is a quickly assembled Washington Post article on the two rulings from the court. (Note, the headling is misleading: The court struck down one form of racial preferences, but ratified the notion of racial preferences in education.)

It did strike down the practice of automatically giving 20 points to undergraduate applicants (a total of 100 is required for admission). But it also said that universities may make "narrowly tailored use of race" for "obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body." This doesn't change things much from the late 1970s ruling in Bakke. But since that time, "diversity" has become a buzzword in the university, governments, and corporate America. It reflects the belief that there are no truths, only beliefs held by differing communities that are based on race or other categories. This is a problematic position to hold in a free society: if truth is only subjective, there are no inherent rights, and a majority can strip a minority of its right at any time.
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County-supplied Internet Access?
The Times-Herald reports on 'Net developments in St. Clair county (northeast of Detroit). The county recently sent over 7,000 lengthy (questions) questionnaires to local residents, asking for their opinion on Internet access. A deputy administrator for the county insists that there are no plans for the county to regulate Internet providers. But the article also notes that "If demand does exist for increased broadband infrastructure, the county will join with the private sector to provide services."

Michigan has a "broadband authority" which offers low-interest loans to companies interested in setting up shop in underserved areas. County officials, apparently, hope to find companies who can tap into that money. The Mackinac Center cautions against such an approach.
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Government Regulations and Drivers Licenses
For most people who live outside of Manhattan, getting a drivers license is up there with death and paying taxes as an inevitable event.

Writing in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, columnist Toni Coleman provides a few vignettes of the trials and tribulations of getting one's license. The knowledge test component of licensing requires the applicant to correctly answer at least 32 of the 40 questions, or 80 percent. Those who fail the test can come back the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that, until they pass.

"Statewide," Coleman write, "34 percent of prospective drivers fail the knowledge exam needed to get their driver's license. In region one, which includes Arden Hills, Stillwater and the Midway Driver's License exam station, the largest in the state 44 percent fail."

One in three! OK, so the instruction booklet--which provides all the information a person needs to know to pass the test--isn't the greatest piece of literature. I've seen cereal boxes with more compelling content. Yet ... when you think of what opportunities are open to a person equipped with a car, you'd think that more people would read the booklet. Coleman estimates that fully one half of the people she talked to have not even opened the booklet. Maybe they are functional illiterates, graduates of a government-operated school.
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Media Bias--or Just Carelessness?
We had a thunderstorm here last night, so I turned on one of the local TV channels (wish I could remember which one) to see if there were any reports of downed tree limbs, floooding, and the like.

What I saw was a visual image so arresting as to be appalling. The newsreader was working her way through a quick list of "top news" stories. One concerned proposed changes to how the criminal justice system treats sex offenders.

Apparently, Minnesota's governor has some role in convening a panel on the subject, or something. So what did I see on the screen? A photo of the governor, with the words "Sex offenders" splayed right next to it.

Again ... bias, or carelessness?
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