Tag: regulations

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too much government

Nixed Ski Trek App Flap

Tread Share, regulations, Colorado, environmentalism,

In Colorado, like other states, the people’s ingenuity often surprises. And in the Rocky Mountain State, like elsewhere, governments are known to worry about what free people do — and, unsurprisingly, often get in the way.

A popular new ride-sharing app, called TreadShare, hit the market last month, designed to alleviate traffic on I-70, the route from Denver to popular skiing destinations. The app makes the trip to the mountain slopes far cheaper than Uber of Lyft — not to mention easier on the environment.

So, of course, the State of Colorado has superciliously suppressed this innovation. Over safety worries, allegedly.

“The idea behind the app is for carpoolers to share the cost of gas and mileage, incentivizing the drivers to bring additional passengers and the passengers to get a cheap ride up to the mountains,” writes Taylor Sienkiewicz in Summit Daily. “Shortly following the launch, TreadShare received a ‘cease and desist’ letter from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. This caused TreadShare to shut down operations and another similar app, Gondola, not to launch.”

Not receiving an apparently required $111,250 annual license, nor proof the company performs background checks on all drivers, the state government has “helpfully” squelched these two ride-sharing services.

What about safety? The Colorado State Patrol, whose job is ostensibly to maximize highway traffic safety, might wish to work with the app-makers to provide any useful security features.

But preventing organized carpooling through pricey up-front licensing requirements and ridiculous red tape doesn’t seem like promoting safety, but more like typical high-handed government regulatory overreach.

Thankfully, citizen activists have formed a group and are petitioning the legislature to join the rest of the Centennial State in the modern world. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tread Share, regulations, Colorado, environmentalism,

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Plunger Politics

plunger, flag, regulations, laws, Trump, flush,

President Donald Trump may win re-election because he dares speak the truth about toilets.

A Washington Post tweet presents the president talking about the insanity of American plumbing: “People are flushing toilets ten times, 15 times, as opposed to once. They end up using more water.”

Jeffrey Tucker, in a terrific piece for the American Institute for Economic Research, focuses on our national disgrace: “I know a man — a proxy for tens of millions — who came from a foreign country, threw down $500 per night at a New York hotel, and was astonished to find himself plunging the toilet within the hour of checking in. 

“Not surprising,” Tucker writes. “Not unusual. American toilets don’t work right. This is why there are plungers next to every toilet.”

And Tucker suggests that Trump may beat whoever ends up as his Democratic challenger for no better reason than because, every now and then, Trump sides with common sense against bureaucrats, regulators, and politicians. And, in this case, seeks to do something about it.

Would any Democrat dare mention that it is Congress that ruined our commodes? 

Of course, Republicans let it happen. 

Our toilets, I have long insisted, provide a perfect object lesson for what is wrong with government today. Early in the history of this Common Sense commentary, I explored the theme: it has been over 20 years ago since I wrote of “A Congressman in Your Bowl”; a few years later, when I started writing columns for Townhall.com, I offered “Flush Congress.”

I don’t know precisely what Trump can do regarding either the plumbing issue or the clogged-up Congress issue, but I — plunger in hand — salute him for trying to do something.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets too much government

Location, Location, Dislocation

Yuh-Line Niou, housing, regulations,

“While Lower Manhattan is desperately in need of affordable housing,” writes Yuh-Line Niou in an official statement of her re-election campaign for New York State Assembly, “we cannot pit the need for housing against the need for green space, especially when so many good alternatives are available. . . .”

Assemblywoman Niou (D-Lower Manhattan) is making the case against a housing project in her district. What she is really trying to do is save the Elizabeth Street Garden, a one-acre sculpture garden.

Uh, OK.

I have nothing against sculptures or gardens, but it seems like a strange sort of public space to exist in a high-demand real estate locale like Manhattan.

But you know what is stranger? 

Ms. Niou also supports the notion that “housing is a right.”

Christian Britschgi, of Reason, notes her pickle, drawing our attention to the similar predicament of a socialist city councilwoman on the other side of the continent, in Seattle. “Now, one can reasonably argue that open space is a precious commodity in a city, one that needs to be balanced against the need for shelter,” Britschgi writes. “But it’s hard to argue that while also asserting that housing is also a right that needs to be guaranteed by the government.”

Niou insists that “both need to be protected and expanded,” and somehow thinks the “best way to achieve this is by engaging the community from the start so decisions are made with a full knowledge of community sentiment and impact.” 

Not mentioned? Rent control.

It is almost as if pols have no idea that goals they promote might be exacerbated by existing policies they dare not criticize.

Or even bring up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Yuh-Line Niou, housing, regulations,

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free trade & free markets political economy Popular

Opportunity for . . . All?

licensing, license, permission, work, labor, regulations

Simple pleasures are the best. So are simple questions.

Senate Bill 2306 in North Dakota “would make it easier for spouses of military personnel to transfer their existing occupational licenses for use in North Dakota, provided they are in good standing and licensed by a reasonable entity,” explains Rob Port at his SayAnythingBlog.

Occupational licensing has exploded, covering a mere 4-5 percent of occupations 60 years ago, but nearly 30 percent today. That’s a serious hurdle for folks trying to break into the marketplace.

Over at the Foundation for Economic Education, economist Daniel Mitchell calls licensing a “win-win” for politicians and interest groups that “get to impose barriers that limit competition.” 

Not winning? Taxpayers and consumers, says Mitchell. “Or a poor person who wants to get a job.”

An Institute for Justice report released last November concluded that “licensing costs the American economy $197.3 billion” annually by “preventing people from working in the occupations for which they are best suited” and “forcing people to fulfill burdensome licensing requirements that do not raise quality.” Meanwhile, the health and safety benefits attributable to this licensing labyrinth seem scant.

A recent Grand Forks Herald editorial endorsing SB-2306 pointed to the state’s “more than 13,000 unfilled jobs, many of which require licensing,” arguing that “[o]ften, trailing military spouses are qualified to fill those openings, but because of the existing licensing process they are not able to immediately work.”

“[W]hy not make this sort of license reciprocity good for everyone moving into our state?” Mr. Port adroitly inquired.

Yes, Big Government: Tear down these barriers!

For all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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licensing, license, permission, work, labor, regulations

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ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Warren’s No Socialist

Elizabeth Warren, housing bubble, crash, regulations, finance

Senator Elizabeth Warren knows that when people trade, both sides gain. She made that clear last year, in a fascinating interview in The Atlantic. But then she went blithely on, saying that she could fix markets by creating a “level playing field.”

Markets create value, but Mrs. Warren asserts that “when the markets are not level playing fields, all that wealth is scraped in one direction.” 

How? People are still trading, even in bumpy playing fields. 

She turns to the crisis of 2008, when many people discovered that they had entered into unsustainable mortgages. She explains how her shiny new regulatory program leveled that playing field.

But her scheme did not even out the bumps in the mortgage industry that existed before the crash:

  • the moral hazard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, 
  • the previous congressional “fix” that pushed banks to accept poor people as good loan risks when they were not (in the name of racial justice, of course), 
  • the regulatory rule that created ratings agencies sans competitive market incentives, and
  • the Federal Reserve policies that fed the whole housing bubble mania.

She just added another burdensome layer of government.

Politicans sure love to pile on.

Now she offers a new scheme, a child-care program that Reihan Salam, this week again in The Atlantic, says “risks increasing the federal deficit, driving up the cost of child care, and squeezing stay-at-home parents.” 

And Mr. Salam says that last risk is one Warren should understand particularly well, since she had “made her reputation as a public intellectual by warning against it.”

Warren’s no socialist — she wants to “save capitalism”! Yet by only adding to government kludge, she might as well be one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Elizabeth Warren, housing bubble, crash, regulations, finance

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meme moral hazard too much government

How to Know

straw, regulations, law, punishment, punish, authoritarian society

Many people don’t seem to realize that a prohibition (banning something) is AUTHORITARIAN BY DEFINITION. Whether it’s drugs, guns, alcohol, offensive language, dangerous ideas, texting while walking(!), plastic straws(!)… authoritarians are perfectly happy to use government violence to force the rest of us behave as they wish. Because they think they know what’s right for everybody else. They are the authorities. They are the keepers of the truth. For the rest of us, the message is clear: obey or be punished.

The spectacle of people screaming about Trump’s “authoritarianism” while simultaneously demanding more regulations, more bans, more restrictions… would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous.

A “rule of law” is based on general principles, and makes room for — or, better yet, is based upon — the protection of individual rights.

It used to be common to say, “a rule of law, not of men”; it was even as common in political oratory as was spouted out over drinks at the Rotary. But as the modern Regulatory State has grown in scope and power, most folks seem to have lost track of the notion. It is now not even a cliché. Few even of our most educated folks can explain this idea. Vast swaths of the mis-educated public appear not to “get” the idea of limiting government to the enforcement of a few general principles; instead, they cry for more “regulations” (along with additional spending and maybe even a whole new division of the executive government) every time a crisis, tragedy or atrocity occurs.

So we are left with a political culture in which the words of Tacitus seem to a majority as implausible at best, evil at worst: “The more the laws, the more corrupt the State.” Contrary to today’s trendy prejudice, we do not need “more laws” — edicts legislated by representatives, or regulations concocted by bureaucracies — we need Law.

As in, “a rule of Law.”

regulations, rule of law, control, freedom

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An Important Distinction

regulations, rule of law, control, freedom

A “rule of law” is based on general principles, and makes room for — or, better yet, is based upon — the protection of individual rights.

It used to be common to say, “a rule of law, not of men”; it was even as common in political oratory as was spouted out over drinks at the Rotary. But as the modern Regulatory State has grown in scope and power, most folks seem to have lost track of the notion. It is now not even a cliché. Few even of our most educated folks can explain this idea. Vast swaths of the mis-educated public appear not to “get” the idea of limiting government to the enforcement of a few general principles; instead, they cry for more “regulations” (along with additional spending and maybe even a whole new division of the executive government) every time a crisis, tragedy or atrocity occurs.

So we are left with a political culture in which the words of Tacitus seem to a majority as implausible at best, evil at worst: “The more the laws, the more corrupt the State.” Contrary to today’s trendy prejudice, we do not need “more laws” — edicts legislated by representatives, or regulations concocted by bureaucracies — we need Law.

As in, “a rule of Law.”

straw, regulations, law, punishment, punish, authoritarian society

Are you truly free?

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free trade & free markets too much government

San Francisco Obstructionism

San Francisco, homeless, zoning, housing, regulations

Bob Tillman wants to build a 75-unit apartment building in San Francisco.

He owns the property — a laundromat. He just wants to convert it. But although there are no good reasons why he shouldn’t, city officials and activists opposed to the property rights of developers have been blocking the project. Tillman has spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars just trying to get started.

His plight “encapsulates the political dysfunction that’s turning San Francisco . . . into an exclusive playground for the ultra-wealthy,” says Reason magazine.

Because of the government’s general antagonism to development, and specific policies such as rent control, much less housing is getting built in the city than would have been possible in a fully free market.

The population is growing quickly, but housing isn’t keeping up. Which results in unnecessarily high rents and housing prices.

None of this is shocking if you understand basic economics. The greater the supply of a good, the cheaper the price tends to be — all other things being equal. That qualification is important. If the supply of oranges doubles but everybody suddenly starts an all-orange-juice diet, orange prices may remain the same or even rise — but less than the price would have risen without the greater supply.

Many factors, including monetary factors, can affect the price of a good. All I’m saying is that if you want the benefits of more housing, including rents that are lower than they would have been without the new housing, you must build houses and apartment complexes.

Stop something from being built and, unfortunately, it won’t be there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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San Francisco, homeless, zoning, housing, regulations
Photo by Mussi Katz

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initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption term limits

Corruption, Arkansas-Style

Arkansas, term limits, corruption, rules, regulations, initiative, democracy

On Friday, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck Issue 3, a citizen-initiated measure to restore legislative term limits, from Arkansas’ November ballot. The Court declared, 4-3, that there weren’t enough “valid” signatures.

This, despite opponents never disputing that more than enough Arkansas voters had signed the petition.

In recent years, legislators have enacted a slew of convoluted laws, purposely designed to wreck the initiative and referendum process.* The regulations give insiders and partisans a myriad of hyper-technical “gotchas” that can be used to disqualify whole sheets of bonafide voter signatures.

“The legislature,” explained former Governor Mike Huckabee recently, “sucker-punched the people of Arkansas and expanded their terms. They did it, I think, very dishonestly — by calling it an ethics bill . . . that had nothing to do with ethics. It was all about giving themselves longer terms.”

Since getting away with that 2014 ballot con job, giving themselves a whopping 16 years in office, seven Arkansas state legislators have been indicted or convicted of corruption. The author of that tricky ballot measure, former Sen. Jon Woods, just began serving an 18-year federal prison sentence for corruption.

Other corruption, that is.

“It’s one reason I think term limits are a very important part of our political system today,” said Huckabee. It is, he argued, “easier to get involved in things that are corrupt the longer you stay.”

Now, sadly, after 2014’s fraudulent ballot measure and two 4-3 state supreme court decisions neutering the entire ballot initiative process, political corruption can continue unabated in the Natural State. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The state supreme court has ignored the clear language in the state constitution regarding such petitions: “No legislation shall be enacted to restrict, hamper or impair the exercise of the rights herein reserved to the people.”

N.B. For relevant links, check yesterday’s splash page for this weekend’s Townhall column.

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Accountability folly general freedom media and media people Second Amendment rights too much government

Simplistically Wrong

guns, cars, regulations, meme, gun control, second amendment

A clever “meme” made the rounds earlier this year showing, in two columns, what it would be like were guns regulated like cars.

How reasonable that would be!

“Title and tag at each point of sale”; “Driver training”/“Gun training”; Liability insurance on each vehicle/gun”; etc. It seems sound, no?

No.

The memester failed to address a context: our car and driver regulations apply to vehicles and drivers on government-run roads. On your own property you can drive all sorts of vehicles, unregulated. And it is on their own property that most gun owners’ firearms stay most of the time.

So, treating “guns like cars” would put government deeper into our private affairs.*

The meme came into an economist’s view packaged under the slogan “doing nothing means more people die.” He saw problems. For example, “someone might propose that each person above the age of 10 years old be interned in a mental-health camp, until and unless experts appointed by the state certified that he or she was not a danger to society.”

Same logic — we cannot do nothing, can we?

Another economist dubbed the problem we have identified here as “a simplistic model of public policy.” Policy advocates tend to assume that if you change a policy we get only one effect. Not true.  

A third economist (I’m going for a trifecta!) discovered that even adding safety features to cars comes at a cost in human life: feeling safer, drivers compensate . . . and it is non-drivers who suffer. More drivers hit more pedestrians.

Be cautious when you drive, sure. Be cautious when you shoot, of course.

But be cautious, especially, when you prescribe new laws.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Not to mention that gun rights are specifically enshrined in the Constitution and vehicle rights . . . not so much.

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