We Want to Stay in Office, Thank You Very Much
Stateline surveys the term limit movement, and finds that 21 states have enacted term limits, but 5 have repealed them.

Term limits have been popular with voters, and not--no surprise here--legislators. Call it enlightened self-interest, call it special knowledge, or call it plain old self-interest, but legislators have had everything to do with undermining term limits and virtually nothing to put them in place. Of 25 states with the initiative process, 20 have enacted term limits. Of the 21 states that have had term limits, 20 were enacted by initiative; only one was self-imposed.

A Cato Institute study, by the way, explains that campaigns to repeal term limits are typically "funded, and managed by career legislators, legislative staff, bureaucrats, and lobbyists," rather than the people.

Explaining the opposition, Patrick Basham concludes "Freshman term-limited legislators tend to ask tougher questions of bureaucrats and demand a higher level of performance from government agencies. Lobbyists can no longer rely on informal, long-lasting friendships with senior members who can exert major influence over a particular piece of legislation."
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In Praise of Inflexibility
Jeremy Bloom plays on the football team for the University of Colorado. He is also, literally, a world-class athlete. As one of the best mogul skiers in the United States, he has his sights on competing in the 2006 Olympics. But competitive skiing is an expensive sport, which is why Bloom wants to get sponsorship from a ski company, ski clothing company, or anyone else who give him some cash.

That puts him in conflict with the NCAA, which bans athletes from taking endorsement money--even if it's for a different sport. Writing for ESPN, Mark Kreidler argues that rule-making and the perceived need for the ban outweigh even a feel-good, attaboy story that is Bloom. He makes some strong points. It reminds me of the old remark that hard cases make for bad law.
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Drop That Cookie
An Associated Press story making the rounds says that fat is costly. "Taxpayers foot the doctor's bill for more than half of obesity-related medical costs, which reached a total of $75 billion in 2003, according to a new study."

Well, yes, taxpayers will pay about half of all obesity-related medical costs--because taxpayers already cover about half of all medical costs anyway, through Medicare (for the old), Medicaid (for the poor, and the old in nursing homes), VA hospitals (for veterans), and for insurance programs for government employees. And don't forget the tax subsidy that business (but few individuals) get for buying health insurance.

Expect this new study, though, to be used by the "food police" to call for higher prices on food, to discourage over-eating, by trial lawyers seeking to get fat wallets (as they did with the tobacco settlement), and all other sorts of, well, ills.

Oh yes, the NYT (registration required) edition spells out some costs ($7.7 billion in California alone), and a quote from a well-known public fear-mongering group.
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Making Government Agencies Pay Permit Fees
In west suburban Chicago, the city of Wheaton contemplates charging other units of government the same fees that it charges private businesses. The Wheaton-Warrenville school district is asking the city to waive $50,000 in engineering fees for work at two high school buildings.

City staff want the schools to hand over the dough, mostly as a way to help the city's tight finances. It would also help the city say no to a similar request from the local park district, which is expected soon.

At first, it may seem like the city ought to not charge the fee--after all, there's a large population overlap between the district and the city, so there may be no net gain to the public purse. Yet such a move is commendable, because it makes the costs of running the school system more transparent. Private businesses have "charged" internal units for services for years. Governments not following the practice ought to.
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Should Students Who Get Financial Aid Be Allowed to Study Religion?
Allowed to study religion? That sounds so ... Totalitarian.

Anyway, some legislators in Michigan (and doubtless, elsewhere), say that it is fine to study religion, as long as you approach it as a detached observer--say, comparative religion. But if you actually want to study religion and then enter a religious job, well, that isn't.

As is the case with most things these days, we're waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide
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When K-12 Schools Fail, We All Pay
Of Colorado high school graduates who enter state universities in that state, over one-quarter require remedial education.
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Moving On Out
The strongest rises in property values in metro Detroit are those at the fringe of the area--suggesting that dispersed growth ("sprawl") continues.
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Price Controls Moving from Canada to California
No surprise here. California legislators are talking about buying prescription drugs in Canada. Of course, prices are cheaper there. It's the law. And like most laws, it has some unintended consequences.
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Tax Cap in Alaska
Gov. Frank Murkowski is proposing some sort of cap on state spending. "Murkowski said his spending limit is higher [than a competing proposal] because it is based on a complex formula that considers changes in population and personal income."

Sounds a bit like the Colorado TABOR--a sound idea in the main--but it allows for the legislature to waive the cap with a supermajority vote. Washington state had a similar measure in the late 1990s, but the ability to overturn the limit by a legislative vote meant that the measure was gutted when tax collections weakened during the dot-com burst.

The Independence Institute, a longtime champion of TABOR, has multiple papers on the subject, including suggestions for modifying the current system.
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We Need More Phonics
So says Milt Rosenberg, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. "Whole language" is a disaster; phonics is the remedy," he says. All competent and non-ideological reading-education specialists know that to be the case."

He links to a commentary of a recent Department of Education study. If you're interested, I think the study is here.
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Vermont School Board Endorses Choice
The Vermont Board of Education has endorsed the policy of school choice. The legislature is conducting a three year study on the issue. Three years? It shouldn't take that long. Just peruse the web site of the Internet Education Exchange, for example.
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Silly Laws
Stateline has a light piece on silly and obsolete laws. Well, yes, it would appear that laws against, oh, tying an alligator to a fire hydrant are no longer needed.

But the story also mentions that it is "illegal for anyone other than a barber to advertise a haircut." It's not a silly matter, because states do indeed extensively regulate the business of cutting hair. Whether they should is an entirely different matter. The Institute for Justice, meanwhile, does a great job of fighting unreasonable regulations that restrict small-time business owners.
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Federal Spending and Analogies: A Disservice to Drunk Sailors
The Wall Street Journal's lead editorial (requires free registration) is titled "Drunken GOP Sailors: Even Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress Didn't Spend Like This."

That does a disservice to sailors, who at the least, are fritting away their own money.

The editorial has a handy chart that displays average annual increases in discretionary domestic spending, in real terms for presidents since Lyndon Johnson. The three big spenders: George W. Bush (8.2 percent), Gerald Ford (8.0) and Richard Nixon (6.8). You'll notice something about all three gentlemen: they're all Republican. The three most tight-fisted: Ronald Reagan (-1.3), Jimmy Carter (2.0) and Bill Clinton (2.5).

While three out of the top three big spenders were Republicans. Two of the three with the record for lowest spending were Democrats.
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IRAs Revolutionized Retirement Savings. Can HSAs Save Health Care?
Despite the record of recent years, which has not been kind to retirement accounts everywhere, IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts--to be distinguished from the political/terrorist group in Europe) have become an established part of American life.

Perhaps--one hopes--Americans will, in a similar way, start taking control over their own health care financing needs through the recently created HSAs, or Health Security Accounts.

Like the traditional IRA, an HSA is funded through pre-tax dollars (translation: you get a tax deduction). The money is then used for various medical expenses. The result: the bias against individuals taking out their own health insurance policies, much as they do for home or auto insurance, is reduced.

Why is this a good thing? First, think of the oddity of the current system: you don't buy your auto insurance through your employer, why should you buy your health insurance? Second, it may reduce the number of uninsured. Right now, if you lose your job, you will most likely lose your health insurance. Third, it bears some hope of keeping health care spending under control. Finally, if you manage your health well, and have good genes, the money you put away in an HSA could turn out to be a rather nice stash to use in retirement.

The new HSA is vastly superior to Flexible Spending Accounts. Under the old accounts, for example, money not spent in one year is wiped out. Gone. You lose it. That doesn't happen with the HSA.
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New Media
Ever think of writing a book? Good luck getting it published. Andy Kessler decided to publish it himself. Why? It was faster that way. "You can write an op-ed today that runs tomorrow, set up a Web site that sells toys in a day or two, get a million signatures and recall a governor in a couple of months. But for some reason, it takes two years to get a book published." In his case, that would have been deadly for sales. So he went through the route that is sometimes called vanity publishing. He writes about it for the Wall Street Journal.

The Guardian publishes an essay on whether corporate blogs will be the next big thing. The answer? No.

"While blogging's earliest advocates operate on the "information wants to be free" principle, many businesses would shudder at the very thought. "Information is power" is a more likely mantra in many organisations.

That's just as well.
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Sports-Crazy Public Schools
Back in late November (the 23rd), the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran several articles on out-of-control spending in the state's public school districts.

So what was the problem? A bloated bureaucracy filled with high-paid paper pushers? Six-figure teachers who work 8 months out of the year? Neither. It was sports departments. Call it the "got to succeed" syndrome, but sports are big business in public schools.

What follows are a few items worth noting from several articles published on that day.

- Minnesota schools are sports-crazy. The state ranks only 21st in population, but is 8th in the number of high school athletes.

- One high school has as its head football coach the son of a former NFL head coach. The team has 108 students--and that's just on the varsity squad. (Many college programs are not that big.) The Eden Prairie schools devote $1.54 per year to athletics.

- Another school, in Blaine, has 25 coaches for its football programs, including 10 on-field varsity assistants.

- The Minnetonka schools have one coach who works exclusively with linebackers. No, make that outside linebackers. (There are usually two men playing this position at any time.)

- And there's money to be had at this school. Assistant coaches can receive close to $4,000 a year. It probably works out to a couple of dollars an hour, but how would you like to get paid for your hobby?

- The school's booster club will raise $250,000 this school year. It will help pay for an inflatable dome, so the team can practice during the winter. More stunning, the booster club has a larger budget than that of the average club for a Division II (mid-sized) university. Those who worked to spruce up the football facilities decried the existing ones as not meeting "our standards of world class." World class? World class? We need world class football facilities for students in government high schools?

- Edina will spend $13 million on four fields with artificial turf, as well as a swimming poor and an upgraded weight room.

- Spending in the state has increased from $76 million to $122 million, between 1991 and 2002. Even adjusted for inflation, that's an increase of 25 percent.

- The chance that any of these kids will make it in the big times is very small: 3 percent of all mens' b-ball players, nationally, will see time in the NCAA (and that includes not only Duke, but Northeast South Dakota State, and so forth).

Why all this spending? A drive to succeed. An ability of families to pay. (One family featured in the story spends $9,000 for sports camps and programs for its four children.)

And if you are concerned about equality of funding for schooling, think of this: football players in nearby Minneapolis play with used cleats, because that's all the budget will allow. (No, I'm not advocating a "cleat equity" lawsuit!)

***
I think parents ought to be able to spend money as they wish--even if it's on four-figure donations to booster clubs to coddle their sports-minded kids. But then, don't complain that school voucher plans are unfair because they let some kids go to "rich" private schools--schools that, more often than not, don't breed "world class" athletes.

(The Star-Tribune archieves are available at a cost. Search for "Success has a price," which will take you to the first article in the series.)
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