Author: Redactor

Categories
Accountability government transparency

Opaque Transparency

Colorado’s state treasurer, Cary Kennedy, is on the hot seat. When running for office, she promised to make the state’s spending more transparent. She has not followed through.

In a different age, such dilatoriness might have been overlooked. Today, the very medium that makes it easy to report what is happening with taxpayers’ money, the Internet, also makes it easy to pressure delinquent officials.

There are websites. The one calling Kennedy to account is a blog called Colorado Spending Transparency. Or COST.

COST recalls that during his 2006 campaign for Colorado State Treasurer, Kennedy observed that when you buy groceries, the receipt shows what you bought. Kennedy, too, she said, would “show you where your money goes.”

Colorado does post its annual budget online. But the COST blog wants a detailed, searchable database, as fifteen other states have provided.

Representative Don Marostica, who also championed transparency in his 2006 campaign, introduced a bill to require such online itemizing. The bill never made it out of committee. Marostica had planned to re-introduce the bill until Governor Ritter stated in a recent speech that he would work with Treasurer Kennedy and others to put the state’s checkbook online.

COST says doing this will only reveal what the state paid, not necessarily what it paid for. COST wants the whole story. And will keep pressing until it gets it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
tax policy

Howard Jarvis Must Be Growling In His Grave

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is getting a bum rap.

The organization is named after fiery tax-cut advocate Howard Jarvis. Jarvis authored Proposition 13, the California tax limitation measure approved in 1978 by a two-to-one margin.

In recent months, like everywhere else, California has suffered economically. And now the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is being angrily berated, for nevertheless still advocating lower taxes for besieged taxpayers.

The Sacramento Bee declares that there’s a “difference between protecting taxpayers and rigidly opposing all new tax increases, regardless of the state’s finances.” Watchdogs who commit the latter become “demagogues,” according to the editorial writers at the Bee. The Howard Jarvis folks are supposedly “charting a course to disaster.”

Oh, I don’t think so. I’m happy when foes of ever-larger tax burdens stick to their guns.

The Bee blithely ignores the true culprit here, asserting that in recent years, tax revenues have “plunged” in California as “deficits have deepened.”

Recent tax receipts are down slightly compared to a year ago. But for years, state government spending has skyrocketed, which the Bee says nothing about. The state budget was $56 billion in 1998. In 2008, $131 billion.

Here’s a suggestion, one the late Howard Jarvis would have liked. Cut spending.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption term limits

That Bloomin’ Blatherer Bloomberg

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, once a man of the people, claimed his billions immunized him from the pitfalls of politics-as-usual. Who could bribe him, right?

But it seems power seduces even without payola.

New Yorkers passed a two-term limit on city officials. But Bloomberg wants another term, and couldn’t be bothered taking the question to voters yet again. So he convinced the city council to water down the law so both he and they could run for a third term.

So, why did Bloomberg overthrow the voters’ decision? Not because he’s seduced by power. No. Because he’s so darned indispensable. In an economic downturn, the city needs a financial wizard like him to steer things.

Except this is the same maestro who dug New York’s current financial hole. The city is looking at a $7 billion budget deficit in a couple years if nothing changes. And according to a new report by the Citizens Budget Commission, the average cost of city employees has increased 63 percent since 2000. Average pay has jumped from $52,000 a year to $69,000. Then you have benefits, which ballooned from $13,000 a year to a whopping $38,000 a year.

Bloomberg can’t say no to unions, so taxpayers suffer. He can’t say no to a power grab, so democracy suffers.

Gee whiz, who but Bloomberg could give us all this suffering?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies

Is More Regulation the Answer?

Regulation. We’re told that it would have saved us from this and that event associated with the current economic downturn.

Well, probably not.

First off, remember that we have had regulation during this period. Clinton upped regulatory oversight of businesses; so did Bush.

Next, the mere fact that there are regulations doesn’t make them effective. Take Bernard Madoff. What Madoff engaged in was a swindle — not a hard-to-control best-intentions-turned-wrong investment fiasco but an actual, intentional fraud.

But as columnist Steve Chapman recently observed, the federal bureaucrats whose job it was to regulate investment businesses investigated Madoff “at least eight times in 16 years,” never, ever “coming close” to the fraud.

”So what,” Chapman asks, “makes you think that future bureaucrats, no matter how vast their authority, will be able to do better?”

Another thing about regulation is that there are several kinds.

When the founding fathers talked about regulating trade, they didn’t mean micromanaging trade to get specific outcomes. The founders meant “to make regular,” as in establishing standards . . . like what is the difference between sound investments and elaborate frauds.

That’s hard enough. Micromanaging a million businesses, to prevent certain unfortunate outcomes, is pretty much impossible.

Past performance is a good indicator of future performance. Just adding a bunch of regulators? That’s no help, since we haven’t discovered any new magic since the last batch failed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Amendment 2 . . . In Plain English

NOTE: This is a revised, updated episode, as played on radio stations.
The original episode can be found here

On January 22, two separate issues appeared on the ballot in Nashville, Tennessee. But voters may not have known that. Seems some folks didn’t want them to know.

You see, Amendment 1, called “English-Only,” stirred up lots of controversy. That initiative read, in part: “all official government communications and publications shall be in English.”

A group called Nashville for All of Us raised $300,000 and, along with the mayor and the governor, campaigned against it. In the course of their campaign, every advertisement urged a vote against both Amendment 1 AND Amendment 2.

Yet, strangely, there was absolutely no mention in their ads or on their website as to what Amendment 2 was about.

Well, in plain English, Amendment 2 had nothing to do with English-Only. Amendment 2 was called Hear the People, and sought to protect the people’s initiative rights. Unfortunately, it went down to defeat along with English-Only.

That’s too bad, because Amendment 2 would have made it easier to put issues on general election ballots rather than on costly special elections, like this one. Amendment 2 would have lowered the number of signatures needed to place an issue on the ballot. And it would have prevented the Metro Council from amending or repealing measures passed by voters . . . at least for four years.

No wonder some folks didn’t want the voters to know about Amendment 2.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Discord Over Spending in Concord

I’ve read the proposed amendment to the Concord, New Hampshire, city charter and read it again. It looks like a fine, responsible attempt to limit government growth.

But Paul Cavanaugh, Concord’s city solicitor, has quite a different view. While three state agencies have given the proposed amendment their go-ahead, he filed an appeal, arguing that the amendment’s spending cap would interfere with the city’s ability to pay for legally required welfare and public safety services.

On first blush, it seems he may have something. If you limit government growth with a charter amendment, and the state still requires you to pay out certain services, and there’s an influx of people who ask for such services . . . what do you do?

Well, you could develop a rainy day fund for just those services, to cover unexpected demands. Or, perhaps, prioritize spending just a tad. Stop spending so much on discretionary items so you have the funds to fulfill your constitutional duties.

Yet the first thing that came to mind for Cavanaugh and Concord’s politicians was to block the citizens from voting on the spending limit. Force it off the ballot.

Politicians! They will do anything, it seems, rather than spend wisely.

It’s sad, really. Politicians hate saving. They hate not spending. Most of all, they hate citizens control of their prodigal ways.

That’s why it is citizens who should decide, directly.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Trillions I Say

I hate to talk bailouts all the time. But the feds keep throwing more misallocated trillions at the problem.

What problem? Oh, you know — the predictable consequences of all the previously misallocated trillions.

We keep hearing about fresh piles of governmental largesse being devoted to making our troubles as long-lasting and burdensome as possible. Of course, the central planners in D.C. don’t admit the necessary effects of their wastrel social-engineering ways. They would rather call it, say, “investing,” or “economic stimulus.”

Economist Henry Hazlitt pointed out that government spending does nothing to “stimulate” the economy. It merely directs “labor and capital into the production of less necessary goods or services at the expense of more necessary goods or services.”

What politicians are really doing is buying votes, keeping themselves in office longer . . . while the bad times roll.

Our calculations of red ink should consider not only the federal debt on the books, which is now more than $10 trillion, but also the unfunded liability for Social Security and other programs. Adding all that, we get something like $70 trillion or more we’re on the hook for.

I did some quick math. A stack of 70 trillion one dollar bills would be close to 48 million miles high. More than half the average distance between the earth and the sun.

Just thought I’d mention it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Citizen Rights Emergency

It’s an emergency! You may not be able to finish this two-minute commentary before the Marines bust through the door to save us. Or, it could be the Coast Guard. Or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Well, not FEMA. But this is a big deal . . . at least in Maine’s state legislature. What’s the giant emergency, you ask? Are you sitting down? Citizens in Maine just might petition to place an issue on the ballot through the state’s initiative process or use their people’s veto to refer a bill passed by the legislature to a vote.

You see the problem, don’t you? Then people would decide. Not the politicians.

Last year, a group called Fed Up With Taxes put the so-called Dirigo Drink Tax to a vote of the people. In November, Mainers voted to repeal the legislature’s tax.

Some politicians don’t much like uppity voters having government their way. So they want to declare an emergency.

Running to rescue unresponsive government is Representative Mark Bryant, who introduced an emergency bill to require all people who gather petitions to be registered to vote.

There are two problems with Bryant’s bill.

First, it is unconstitutional: Years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such requirements made no sense — except as a way to unfairly block petitions.

Second, shredding the Constitution doesn’t qualify as an emergency.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

Change So Far

President Barack Obama promised change . . . including in the way Congress did things. As a senator, he sponsored a transparency bill that — if Congress could only have stuck with after passing — would have publicized all proposed pork.

And there’s the rub. Congress is constitutionally in charge of change, really. You might say “change” is Congress’s job: New things for government are supposed to come from Congress in the form of legislation. Not from the president.

So how has Congress helped? Well, as I’ve reported before, the new Congress has indicated pretty clearly what kind of change it wants: A stronger stranglehold on power and a narrow purview of options to be considered.

None of this represent the kind of change Americans want . . . or Obama promised.

The most interesting procedural proposals come, these days, from the minority Republicans.

Opposing the developing Democrat bailout package (that spends more trillions we don’t have), House Minority Leader John Boehner asked that no so such bill be “brought to the floor of the House unless there have been public hearings in the appropriate committees, the entire text has been available online for the American people to review for at least one week, and it includes no special-interest earmarks.”

Veteran Washington reporter Cokie Roberts called Boehner’s proposal “delightful.”

Delightful it is, and in Obama’s spirit, too, but it’s up to Congress to deliver.

So far, no good.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

The Oklahoma Three, Free at Last

It seemed hardly necessary. The handcuffs and leg-irons, I mean. I wasn’t a threat to anybody. Neither were Rick Carpenter and Susan Johnson.

We had been charged with “conspiracy to defraud the state of Oklahoma” for our work to put a spending cap on the ballot.

The metal constraints were for show — to intimidate us and to scare the good citizens of Oklahoma.

The threatened penalty of ten years in prison was scary, too.

Being innocent, we defended our rights, even as the persecution dragged on for a year and half. Not even a preliminary hearing had been completed. Folks wondered if Attorney General Drew Edmondson was more interested in tying us up politically than in prosecuting us legally.

We never got our day in court; the Constitution intervened. Not only did we not break Oklahoma’s residency law, the federal Tenth Circuit declared the law itself an unconstitutional violation of our First Amendment rights.

So, on January 22nd, the AG dismissed the charges. It was a great day — for all of us.

But the underlying mindset of the original law and prosecution remains. Legislators continue to enact unconstitutional impediments against citizen use of ballot initiatives and recall petitions. Too often, officials seek to punish citizens who assert their rights.

Citizens in chains cannot control their government. That’s why, working with the group Citizens in Charge Foundation, I’ll keep fighting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.