Tag: Texas

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Accountability ideological culture local leaders media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

The Eye of the Storm

Hurricane Harvey, Cajun Navy, government relief, aid, Texas, Houston

Hurricane Harvey has been amazing in its devastation. All that rain, all that flooding — what  a frightening time it must be for those caught within it.

While Harvey’s winds brought in waves and rain and floods, for most of us, far away and snug in our homes, it brought an occasion to donate, and … nostalgia.

Nostalgia? It’s not the disaster element so much as an old-​time exhibition … of journalism. For more than just a few hours, we watched reporters actually report. We saw them stand waist-​deep in water. We saw them cover actual events.

And we read them deal in facts … like the heroic efforts of the “Cajun Navy.”

Of course, this opinion-​free window of media coverage did not last long. The talking heads and Twitter-​journos and partisan hacks came flooding back not long after the worst. 

Did Trump do enough? Or the right thing? 

Did Houston’s no-​zoning policy lead to the disaster?

Doesn’t “price gouging” really suck?

Did … Enough. It was and is too early for finger-​pointing and “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.”

Of course, the Houston zoning discussion is interesting. It is worth noting that there are building rules and governments in Houston, as well a national rules that made homes and businesses there less safe. And economists have already come to their usual defenses of “price gouging” and criticisms of disastrous government programs.

Still, the enormous relief efforts remain the biggest human interest story — thousands of individuals taking the initiative and their boats to join first responders and the National Guard in rescuing thousands trapped by flooding. 

So, before we explain it all, let’s luxuriate in what remains of the fact-​based reporting.

And help.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
free trade & free markets subsidy

Rent Too High?

Remember Jimmy McMillan? He’s “the rent is too damn high!” shouting, six-​time New York City mayoral candidate with the, er — Rent is Too Damn High Party.

McMillan is at least partly right. It’s no mystery that rents are so high. Government policies are aimed at just that result.

In New York City, rent control discourages new supply as well as maintaining existing supplies — causing shortages leading to higher prices. In many cities, particularly in Blue political metropolises, zoning has pretty much the same effect.

Meanwhile, pumping subsidies into the demand side of the rental housing market doesn’t exactly decrease prices.

Last weekend, the Tyler Morning Telegraph offered up “Housing Choice Voucher program helps families,” reporting on 65-​year-​old Brinda Meier’s effort to land one of 500 “popular” Housing Choice Vouchers offered with grants of federal tax dollars distributed through Tyler’s Neighborhood Services Department. The voucher goes to help pay the rent.

That’s nice, of course, and no doubt why the program is popular. But the landlord actually cashes the voucher check. Moreover, to the extent these rent subsidies allow folks to afford higher rents, they in turn keep those rents higher — including for folks whose voucher numbers won’t come up in the “please Uncle Sam help pay my rent” lottery.

We discover that Meier, who lives on Social Security and food stamps, is preparing to move across town. She’s found a new place to rent, $200 cheaper than her current place — and in a better neighborhood. She tells the reporter that she’ll move without regard to whether she wins the rent subsidy.

So taxpayers may subsidize someone who doesn’t need it, serving only to keep rents too darn high.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights

Houston, You’re a Problem

Will this installment of “Common Sense” be subpoenaed by the City of Houston?

The city first subpoenaed the sermons of pastors who oppose a controversial equal-​rights ordinance and who have “ties” to conservative activists suing the city. When that raised howls of protest, the city, in its infinite wisdom, issued new subpoenas for “speeches” by these pastors.

The difference between sermons and speeches? None.

PDFThe Houston Equal Rights Ordinance expands what counts as illegal discrimination in the workplace to include any based on sexual orientation or “gender identity or pregnancy.” The ordinance seeks to eradicate the “diminution of dignity, respect and status” that it declares must result from any unequal treatment — regardless of the reason — related to any of 15 or so protected characteristics. The vagueness and catch-​all character of this further workplace regimentation would doubtless spawn new lawsuits by dignity-​diminished employees eager to interpret motives in the most lawsuit-​conducive light.

My point, though, is not about governmental bullying of employers and violation of their rights, but governmental bullying of critics of government policy and violation of their right to speak freely. Speech that vexes you is not thereby properly subject to legal action. Indeed, political speech is precisely the kind of feather-​ruffling communication that the First Amendment was designed to protect.

Nobody would bother trying to curb the flow of sermons (or speeches) about the weather.

Houston needs to be sued again — for issuing all of these subpoenas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Texas vs. No-​Growth Coasts

Governments must rely upon profitable businesses. Without them, government has next to nothing.

And yet “next to nothing” is what governments can do to best help businesses succeed.

Thank Texas Governor Rick Perry for these thoughts … and Matthew Yglesias, who commented on Perry’s recent “nuclear-​strength” video promotion, inviting businesses to leave places like New York and locate themselves in Texas, which has fewer regulations and no income tax. The ad claims Texas is “big for business.” Yglesias quibbles:

If New York was a terrible place to live, work, and do business, then it would be cheap to live in New York. But New York is not cheap. It’s not Detroit. It’s not even average. It’s, in fact, hellishly expensive. If New York emulated Texas and eliminated its income tax, rich people would bid up the finite supply of New York City land at an even more furious rate — the city wouldn’t see Houston or Dallas growth rates.

I’m no economist, but I have quibbles with Yglesias’s critique. New York is expensive, yes. But the cause of the expense isn’t just that people bid up housing and services. It’s expensive in no small part as a result of all those regulations, especially courtesy of one regulation in particular: rent control. Get rid of rent control and the city income tax? Watch housing grow.

And growth, Yglesias rightly points out, is what’s really in Texas’s favor. Texan low-​impact government policies favor growth, while “the residents and politicians” of blue-​state/​beach-​front states, though “liberal,” have, in fact, “become exceptionally small‑c conservative and change averse.” Because they do too much, allegedly to “help.” But mostly to gentrify.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall too much government

The Citizen’s Stop Sign

What an election year. It’s not just the drubbing dealt to many statist incumbents that warrants a little triumphalism. We can also cheer about ballot measures whose passage means the defeat of very specific attacks on the citizenry.

Several local referendums targeted all those ticket-​triggering red-​light cameras that have been popping up. The main purpose of the gotcha-​gizmos seems to be lunging for the wallets of hapless motorists, not enhancing anybody’s safety.

Voters are rejecting this fancy tax on driving. In Houston, a group called Citizens Against Red Light Cameras pushed for a ballot question to chuck the cameras. Voters passed it, despite the apoplectic opposition of the city council and the company operating the cameras, American Traffic Solutions. Camera ordinances were also felled in two Ohio towns, Chillicothe and Heath, and in College Station, Texas. In Anaheim, California, 73 percent said Yes to banning red-​light cameras.

It was a tougher battle in Mukilteo, Washington, where ATS tried to stop voters from deciding on the cameras. Citizen activist Tim Eyman, who also has a slew of successful tax-​limitation initiatives under his belt, led the effort to combat that obstructionism, and the state supreme court ordered ATS to back off. The kill-​the-​cameras measure went on to pass by 70 percent.

It’s great whenever voters call a halt to political predation. By no method can they do so more directly and effectively than via the right of initiative and referendum.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights

Scurvy Tricks in Texas

It should be a truth universally acknowledged that your average crew of incumbent politicians in possession of a reform agenda must be in want of an actual reform.

Last summer, the Texas Legislature got hold of a bill intended to prevent abuse of the state’s eminent domain power. And legislators proceeded to mangle it beyond recognition.

The act of bad faith was quickly reported by the Institute for Justice, an organization that actively combats plundering of private property all around the country. IJ alerted supporters to the bill’s alterations, explaining how that at the very last minute, in a reconciliation conference, lawmakers dramatically weakened the measure.

Note, the weakening occurred after it had passed both houses in a much stronger form.

The bill’s point had been to prevent the use of eminent domain for private redevelopment. But the final language allowed lawmakers to confer eminent domain power to any private entity at any time, regardless of other language in the measure.

In November, voters eager for better protection of their property rights overwhelmingly approved Proposition 11, despite its lax provisions. Whether abuses of eminent domain will actually be curtailed as a result depends on the whims of lawmakers and the courts. 

One thing is certain, though, were Texans to possess the right of citizen initiative they could act on their own to bring real reforms to the ballot.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.