Category: Accountability

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Accountability free trade & free markets initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics too much government

A Wall of Separation

cronyism, pork, stadium, Tom Hanks, ballot initiative, welfare

Whatever you think of Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, wherein he celebrated the First Amendment for “building a wall of separation between Church & State,” let’s agree that it would have been nice had he penned another letter — to the Waterbury Methodists or someone — urging a wall of separation between Sports and State.

Last week, actor Tom Hanks became another brick in my hoped-for wall. “It’s a billion-dollar industry,” Hanks said of the National Football League.

[T]hey have billion-dollar TV contracts. All the owners are billionaires. And yet when they want to build a stadium they’re going to use for 10 weeks out of the year, they expect the city taxpayers to buy the building.

Hanks is livid. The recent “deal” that lured his beloved Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas included $750 million in public funds to build a $1.9 billion stadium. The Raiders are planning to stay in Oakland for the 2017 and 2018 seasons, while that new stadium is built. “When the Raiders leave,” the beloved star declared, “I am going on an NFL moratorium for two years.”

Unfortunately, Hanks appears more angry that his team is leaving (eventually), than with the principle that taxpayers ought not be ripped off.

Subsidizing businesses is cronyism, not capitalism. It’s even more outrageous when the poor must pay for the rich.

But how to stop it? In every city where citizens can propose ballot initiatives, let’s petition and pass measures requiring a public vote before any such subsidy.

It may not be the great wall I’d prefer, but it’s a high hurdle providing taxpayers some important protection.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment folly general freedom moral hazard nannyism Regulating Protest too much government

The Oregon Fail

Oregon, traffic light, license, licensing, government, regulations, engineer

My children used to play “The Oregon Trail,” an early computer game where one navigated the amazingly dangerous wagon trip out west — often dying of dysentery or drowning while crossing a river.

Oregon remains treacherous.

Yesterday, we bemoaned the cancellation of a parade because a Republican Party group’s participation elicited threats of violence. Now, we find that writing a thoughtful letter to public officials about problematic traffic lights garners a $500 fine.

Mats Järlström, a Swedish electronics engineer, made the mistake of moving to Beaverton, Oregon, and then compounded his error by sending an email to Oregon’s engineering board alerting them to a traffic light problem that put “the public at risk.”

The Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying responded by informing him that statute “672.020(1) prohibits the practice of engineering in Oregon without registration . . . at a minimum, your use of the title ‘electronics engineer’ and the statement ‘I’m an engineer’ . . . create violations.”

Mr. Järlström expressed shock at the bizarre response. “I’m not practicing engineering, I’m just using basic mathematics and physics, Newtonian laws of motion, to make calculations and talk about what I found.”

After a red-light camera ticketed his wife, Järlström investigated and discovered that the yellow light didn’t give drivers slowing down to turn at the intersection enough time.

He wasn’t disputing the ticket, just attempting to right a wrong. Which is apparently against the law, when bureaucrats are committing the wrong.

The Institute for Justice accuses the licensing board of “trying to suppress speech.” Thankfully, they’re helping Järlström sue in federal court.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photograph by Tom Godber on Flickr

 

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies tax policy

Death and . . .

taxes, tax cut, Trump, gift, give away, rights, growth, economics

It’s a sure thing — that most folks will like President Trump’s tax cuts. Though we don’t yet know all the details.

When it comes to taxes, less is more. 

That is, if you’re paying taxes. It is no great mystery that people like it when their own taxes are reduced.

But what about reducing other people’s taxes?

“The core economic case for tax cuts is that they reduce the obstacles to creative and productive activities,” economist Don Boudreaux explained yesterday at the Café Hayek blog.

Cutting the corporate tax rate — which even former President Bill Clinton supported during last year’s campaign — won’t immediately appear in people’s paychecks, but can stimulate economic growth helping everyone. Recent experiences in both Britain and Canada bear this out.

Cutting taxes, of which “the rich” pay more, can also spur growth.

Yet, these ideas do not dominate popular discussions of tax cuts. Boudreaux lamented media reporting that treats any tax reduction as simply a “‘gift’ to high-income earners,” dubbing the coverage: “Biased. Benighted. Blind.”

“Suppose that freedom of the press were reported in the same way as . . . a ‘giveaway to the press’?” he asked. “Most people, of course, do not own newspapers or other media outlets.”

Boudreaux concluded, “When the press is free, the chief beneficiaries are the general public.”

Freedom — of both the press and to keep more of the fruits of our labors — helps the common man. As well as the uncommon man. A tax cut for me helps me directly, and you indirectly. And vice versa. Just as a free press is great for those in journalism as well as those of us not in journalism.

That is not blind, but eyes open; not benighted, but enlightened; not biased, but . . .

. . . Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Accountability folly free trade & free markets moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics

Super-Subsidize Me

welfare, taxes, charity, subsidy, subsidize, shrimp, stadium, Tesla

“In American political discourse, those on the side of the sick, poor, and underprivileged tend to favor more federal government intervention,” writes Heartland Institute policy advisor David D’Amato at The Hill. He explains that many “see government as . . . rather like a charity . . .”

Sure, government can act charitably, except that its money isn’t given voluntarily, and the recipients are often not so needy.

Earlier this month, the stock price of electric car company Tesla, Inc. rose high enough to overshadow General Motors. That’s great news for billionaire Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO. But an Investor’s Business Daily editorial noted, “[T]he company is heavily reliant on taxpayer support.”

Who benefits (in addition to Musk)? “A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 90% of electric car subsidies go to the top 20% of households,” the editorial stated. IBD added that it was “a lot of welfare-for-the-rich for very little environmental benefit.”

In addition to funding advanced technology, American taxpayers have spent $6.7 billion over the last few decades to subsidize stadiums for wealthy sports team owners. The latest? In Clark County, Nevada, taxpayers forked over $750 million ($354 for every resident) to bribe — er, bring — the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas.

The ridiculous Minnesota legislation to feed $5 million in state funds to start two shrimp farms almost seems reasonable in comparison. Almost.

“Maybe growing shrimp in Minnesota is a great idea,” admits John Hinderaker of the Center of the American Experiment. “If so, the owners should do what other small businessmen do: either find investors, or get a bank loan.”

Government’s crony capitalism taxes the poor to give to the rich.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility term limits too much government

Ida-Heave-Ho

Gov. Butch Otter, Idaho, veto, asset forfeiture, term limits,

“Is there any chance the vetoes can be overridden?” asked a reader in response to yesterday’s commentary on Idaho Gov. Butch Otter’s veto of two pieces of common-sense legislation.

It’s a good question, because the bill reforming civil asset forfeiture and the bill easing regulations that block employment in cosmetology both passed by wide margins. Unfortunately, the answer is NO. 

According to the Gem State’s constitution, the governor has ten days after legislation reaches his desk or, at the session’s end, ten days after the legislature adjourns to decide whether to sign or veto a bill. If he vetoes after adjournment, it cannot be overridden — unless the legislature comes back into session.*

Only the governor can call legislators back into session, which is exceedingly unlikely if a new session would entail a veto override.

It turns out that Idaho is one of only six states where legislators are unable after adjournment to override a veto. Still, the problem’s simple enough to solve: legislators could propose a constitutional amendment changing the process.

Senator Steve Vick did just that, in 2014 and again in 2016. But though his amendment garnered the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate, the House never took it up. He plans to reintroduce it next year.

There’s another constitutional change needed: term limits for the governor. A 2015 poll found a whopping 84 percent of Idahoans favor such limits. Yet, legislators may be squeamish, knowing that those same voters (by that same margin) also want legislators term-limited.

“Sometimes it is amazing,” Idaho Politics Weekly’s Bob Bernick explained, “how elected officials can just ignore the will of voters.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Gov. Otter also vetoed the legislature’s repeal of the state sales tax on groceries, the timing of which legislators are challenging in court.

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Accountability general freedom local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

A Bad Haircut

Gov. Butch Otter, Idaho, asset forfeiture, licensing, veto

Eric Boehm over at Reason excoriated Idaho Gov. Butch Otter for giving libertarians “the double bird salute.” Boehm wondered if the governor, in vetoing two bills earlier this month, had been merely “trying to make libertarians mad.”

That’s not exactly fair.

The two blocked bills, one reforming unjust civil asset forfeiture and the other easing pernicious regulation of cosmetology, did certainly appeal to libertarians. But they also appealed to conservatives and liberals. And both passed with bipartisan support.

House Bill 139 would have reduced the number of training hours for a cosmetology license and allowed folks to fix hair at special events like weddings without a license, etc. “The fact that many lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, liberals, moderates and conservatives, are working together to advance legislation in the interest of economic opportunity and prosperity,” argued Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, “is a thing of beauty for a profession that’s all about beauty.”

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Those who run cosmetology schools probably like more mandated hours and folks in the profession might wish for less competition. Governor Otter said as much, complaining that HB 139 was written “without input from interested parties or due regard for the health, safety and welfare of the public.”

Just how dangerous is a bad haircut?

Putting safety in context, Hoffman explained that the current mandated hours of training for a cosmetology license “is more than is required to become an EMT in Idaho.”

Gov. Otter vetoed HB 202, the civil asset forfeiture reform, at the behest of “law enforcement” — the very interested parties who gain from taking people’s stuff without bothering to charge or convict them of a crime.

That makes no sense . . . according to Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom moral hazard responsibility term limits

Trouble Over Term Limits

Paraguay, term limits, democracy, General Alfredo Stroessner, Cartes’s Colorado Party

Americans are hardly alone in strongly supporting term limits. All over the world, people who care about limited government also care about limited terms for officials wielding government power.

Especially the people of Paraguay, who remember all too well the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner. He seized power in 1954, securing it with fraudulent elections and the arrest, torture and murder of thousands of political opponents, until being removed by a 1989 military coup.

After that ugly 35-year episode, strict term limits were established in the Paraguayan Constitution: one five-year term for the president — no re-election possible.

Fast-forward to the last few weeks, when the country’s Senate violated its own rules by holding a secret session — of which even the head of the Senate was unaware — and approved a constitutional amendment allowing re-election of the president. Under Paraguay’s constitution, amendments can be enacted by the House and Senate — without a vote of the people.

Before the House could vote, however, protests erupted against the deeply unpopular term limits change. (A recent poll showed 77 percent of Paraguayans opposed the amendment.) Angry crowds battled police on the streets of Asunción, the capital, after trashing and setting fires in the National Congress building. Meanwhile, police killed one demonstrator when they attacked the Liberal Party headquarters, prompting Pope Francis to urge dialogue in this 90 percent Roman Catholic country.

Yesterday, President Horacio Cartes announced he would not seek re-election in 2018, whether the constitution is changed or not.

The head of Cartes’s Colorado Party, which was associated with Stroessner decades ago, told Reuters that any change is now “practically impossible.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency incumbents local leaders national politics & policies responsibility

A+ in Arrogance

Rep. Markwayne Mullin, Oklahoma, salary, congressional, pay, representation, representative

The folks in Congress represent ‘We, the People’ . . . well, theoretically, at least. They’re supposed to work for us. We are their bosses. We pay their salary.

But not U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, the third-term Republican from the rural Second District of Oklahoma. At two recent town hall meetings, the former professional mixed martial arts fighter responded to comments that the people pay his salary and health insurance with a sort of verbal karate-chop.*

“You say you pay for me to do this. Bullcrap,” he aggressively retorted. “I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got there and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to go.”

Mullin’s taxpayer-funded PR professional, Amy Lawrence, was nice enough to explain the prickly, arrogant ranting of her boss, noting that, “Like all business owners, Congressman Mullin pays his taxes, which contribute to congressional salaries.”

Which means — yes sirree! — that of course his constituents pay his salary, when they also “contribute” their taxes. The fact that Rep. Mullin pays taxes, too, doesn’t change that fact.

And, though Mullin claims being a member of Congress is not how he makes “his living,” he does, nonetheless, deposit into his bank account a not inconsequential $174,000 a year in congressional salary.

Moreover, as a member of Congress, Mullin also gets to flout the Obamacare law with a special health insurance deal.

A town hall set for Tahlequah was canceled . . . for security reasons.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* His comments in Jay, Oklahoma, are available here; his Okemah comments, here. An entire hour video of his Okemah remarks are here (the portion about his pay begins at 24:48).

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Rep. Markwayne Mullin, Oklahoma, salary, congressional, pay, representation, representative

 

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Accountability incumbents term limits

Calling Hatch Home

Senator Orrin Hatch, term limits, congress, Senate, hypocrisy,

Back in 2012, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch pledged that, if elected, his current six-year term would be his last. On Election Day 2018, Hatch will be 84 years old — and have spent more than half his life in Washington.

Still, Utah’s senior senator just announced he intends to run for re-election for an eighth term.

Why? Our newly-elected president, Hatch told a Salt Lake City TV station, “is all over me to run again.” And so is the leadership in the Republican Senate — and even in the House. Or so he says.

But what about the people of Utah? A poll this past January found that 78 percent of Utahans “definitely” or “probably” did not want Hatch to seek re-election — with 58 percent in the “definitely” camp.

“Hatch’s bid for an eighth term is an endorsement of term limits,” argued Richard Davis, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, yesterday in the Deseret News.

“For many years, I opposed term limits because I felt legislators needed the time to gain knowledge and handle the long-standing bureaucracy and the power of interest groups,” Davis wrote. “However, I have concluded that such knowledge can be gained relatively quickly and would become more effective if there were not highly senior politicians, like Hatch, who dominate a legislative body for many years.”

In 1976, Hatch challenged an incumbent with the line: “What do you call a Senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.”

Today, having spent over 40 years in power, Hatch only wants more . . . and calls Washington home.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights too much government

What’s Being Forfeited

asset forfeiture, banks, banking, IRS,TIGTA, Bank Secrecy Act

What do you call those who prey upon the innocent, illegally snatching their money?

Thieves? Muggers? The Mob?

Government.

Last month, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) issued a report on the Internal Revenue Service’s use of civil asset forfeiture against Americans accused — well, not accused . . . more like suspected . . . well, not actually suspected of doing anything wrong, but willy-nilly deemed guilty without charge, judge, jury or conviction — of “structuring.” That’s depositing less than $10,000 in cash into a bank to avoid all the paperwork demanded by the United States Congress at that amount.

Congress passed the Bank Secrecy Act, making structuring illegal, supposedly to trip up drug traffickers and money-launderers. But that is obviously a ruse, as the TIGTA report makes abundantly clear. The IRS is simply snatching money — they won’t tell us how much — right out of individuals’ and businesses’ bank accounts.

Pity the cash-oriented business that doesn’t accumulate at least $10,000 to deposit.

The TIGTA report highlights that an incredible 91 percent of the time, the IRS acted “against individuals and businesses whose income was legally obtained,” and whom the IRS did not suspect of criminal activity. Also, through the IRS’s process of thievery “the rights of some individuals and businesses were compromised.”

Why is the IRS using the law to pilfer from the innocent, instead of the guilty?

As I explained Sunday at Townhall.com, it is easier and more profitable to make “quick hits” against innocent businesses rather than devious criminals.

When those responsible for protecting the innocent from criminals, instead, illegally twist the law to victimize the innocent, it’s called tyranny. And what is forfeited is much more valuable than mere money.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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