Out of Control

With just one week to go, we can still speculate about Election Day outcomes. Anything could happen. How about this scenario: six states move closer to tobacco prohibition, while six states liberalize marijuana regulations.

In the 1980s, LA’s local policy makers began diverting funds from a successful bus ridership program, which serves the transit dependent poor, toward rail construction, designed for more affluent “choice” riders. That prompted a decade-long legal tug-o-war between the Bus Riders Union and the MTA.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been required to spend more than $1 billion to buy buses, add service and maintain low fares since 1996, when the agency entered into a consent decree to settle a civil rights lawsuit with bus riders.

That consent decree expires Sunday and won’t be extended:

While transit officials pledged Wednesday to maintain the improved service, advocates for bus riders said they would monitor the agency for any cuts in countywide operations. They had sought to extend the decree until the agency was in full compliance.

"If MTA significantly guts its bus system, we will be back before Judge Hatter asking for an extension," said E. Richard Larson, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which represented bus riders. "We are not going away."

Not surprisingly local officials were eager to yammer about their commitment to customers:

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky predicted the agency would stay "faithful to the principles that the customer comes first."

But which customers come first? Those with two or three cars in the garage or those with no car at all?

Larson and others fear that, without the court's watchful eye, transit officials will return to neglecting the county's heavily used bus system to build and operate expensive subway and light-rail lines through more affluent neighborhoods.

Article here.

Related: Transit’s Most Important Duty

Related: Transit for the Rich—Oakland edition

Related: LA Story (pdf)

Live bands, cheerleaders, mascots, free soup—what else could it be but another light rail celebration?

This time Denver area railers let loose for the grand opening of the Southeast line.

Flashback:

At a 2003 groundbreaking ceremony in Seattle, amid the fireworks display, free bbq sandwiches, and live bands belting out classics like “Brick House,” local dignitaries proclaimed that rail would help make their city “world class,” and even lift the region’s psyche.

And at a 2005 Phoenix area shindig:

Dignitaries flipped a gigantic "on" switch that illuminated a 30-foot replica of the light-rail bridge that will stretch across Tempe Town Lake, just east of the existing railroad bridge. When the real-life $21 million span is complete, it will glow with special lights.

During a dramatic demonstration, taped orchestral music thundered and fake smoke swirled as the replica's lights shifted colors. Officials also filled a time capsule that will be sealed and put inside a future Metro station.

Then there was Charlotte later in 2005, which included (shutter) a group hug among politicos:

After hammering a golden spike into a section of track, a giddy Mayor Pat McCrory simultaneously hugged [FTA head Jennifer] Dorn and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.

And these aren’t always carefully-planned, publicly-funded events. Light rail has also been known to provoke spontaneous celebration. Andrew Brantingham and his roommate were so geeked up about Minneapolis’ first light rail line that threw their own rager for the Hiawatha line.

Related: Party-Pooping Economists

The Commission for a New Georgia asks the fundamental questions of how government operates. But more importantly, how government should operate as well. They fill an all too common void in most statehouses where the needs of the bureaucracy are put ahead of those of the taxpayer. Governments' ultimate responsibility is to provide high quality services at a reasonable cost to taxpayers. That is the mission of the Commission for a New Georgia. Sadly these efforts often fail because of a lack of implementation. How many "blue-ribbon" commissions have been created throughout the years? Usually all we can show for their effort is a nice report. Once again, that's where the Commission for New Georgia sets itself apart. In just a short time many of their recommendations have been implemented, saving taxpayer dollars and improving customer service. The Commission for a New Georgia has established itself as a pioneer and a leader.

Libertarian Party candidates are often a wacky bunch. There was Howard Stern, of course, and how about Montana’s Stan Jones?

His skin turned blue after downing a homemade concoction he thought would protect him from a wave of disease that would be unleashed during post-Y2K antibiotics shortages.

And now some good news for all the fellas who gripe about the lack of ladies in the movement:

Loretta Nall, the Libertarian Party's write-in candidate for governor of Alabama, is campaigning on her cleavage and hoping that voters will eventually focus on her platform.

``It started out as a joke, but it blew up into something huge,'' said Nall, a 32-year-old with dyed blond hair.

Her campaign is offering T-shirts and marijuana stash boxes adorned with a photo of her with a plunging neckline and the words: ``More of these boobs.'' Below that are pictures of other candidates for governor - including Republican incumbent Bob Riley and Democratic Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley - and the words: ``And less of these boobs.''

Article here; campaign website here.

From a University of Toronto working paper:

We study the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity. Using data that tracks individuals over time, we find no evidence that urban sprawl causes obesity. We show that previous findings of a positive relationship most likely reflect a failure to properly control for the fact the individuals who are more likely to be obese choose to live in more sprawling neighborhoods. Our results indicate that current interest in changing the built environment to counter the rise in obesity is misguided.

More here; study here; via Peter Gordon.

Related: Same story from Oregon State University study

Related: Evidence for built environment-physical activity relationship “currently sparse”

Tyler Cowen points to a new study that says, in the short-run, violent movies deter 200 assaults each day:

What is the short-run impact of media violence on crime? Laboratory experiments in psychology find that exposure to media violence increases aggression. In this paper, we provide field evidence on this question. We exploit variation in violence of blockbuster movies between 1995 and 2002, and study the effect on same-day assaults. We find that violent crime decreases on days with higher theater audiences for violent movies. The effect is mostly driven by incapacitation: between 6PM and 12AM, an increase of one million in the audience for violent movies reduces violent crime by 1.5 to 2 percent. After the exposure to the movie, between 12AM and 6AM, crime is still reduced but the effect is smaller and less robust. We obtain similar, but noisier, results using data on DVD and VHS rentals. Overall, we find no evidence of a temporary surge in violent crime due to exposure to movie violence. Rather, our estimates suggest that in the short-run violent movies deter over 200 assaults daily. We discuss the endogeneity of releases. Potential interpretations for our results include a cathartic effect of movies, displacement of crime, and decrease in alcohol consumption. The differences with the experimental results may be due to experimental procedures, or to sorting into violent movies. Our design does not allow us to estimate long-run effects.

Are the researchers on the mark or full of it? You decide; study here.

I have a piece in today’s LA Daily News:

WHEN it comes to transportation, Angelinos have plenty to gripe about: the nation's worst traffic congestion, and - with 6 million more people expected to arrive by 2030 - the expectation that those jams will get even worse. Enter the phony fix of Proposition 1B, the $19.9 billion transportation bond.

A recent Reason Foundation study revealed that it would take $68 billion in roadway-capacity expansion for Los Angeles to vanquish severe congestion by 2030. Next to that figure Proposition 1B's promise of $19.9 billion seems small.

But isn't something better than nothing? Not in this case.

More here.

George Will bashes the the new internet gambling prohibitions. As he says:

When government restricts Americans' choices, ostensibly for their own good, someone is going to profit from the paternalism.

Will points out some of the absurdities of the law. Nick at Hit and Run does as well, with a nice quote of outrage from Barney Frank! And Jacob has pointed to some analysis showing the new law may lose in court.

I think Will got his counting wrong though. Maybe others can come up with more, but I'd say:

Prohibition II is the war on drugs

Prohibiition III is the war on tobacco

I'd say the recent attacks on gambling are prohibition IV

Prohibition V?--fatty foods? Porn? one from the left and one from the right, however the election goes, we will likely see one of them gaining steam.

Reason has teamed up with Americans For Prosperity and the Pacific Research Institute and hit the road today on the California Taxpayer Trust Tour. We are hitting a number of locations around the state this week to highlight some of the absurdities of state spending--from the beach house in Malibu to thousands of missing state vehicles.

At our Sacramento kick-off this afternoon, we highlighted the scandal over Rob Reiner and the First Five organization using tax money to promote universal preschool while Reiner was leading an effort to put a state funded universal preschool program on the budget.

Our point on the tour is essentially to point out to folks that we all know the state is not managing the tax money we already send them well. Reason's Citizen's Budget identified $30-40 billion in savings from the state budget, and the California Performance Review by state employees identified over $30 billion savings. But the state's leaders are not interested in how to do better with current funds. They are interested in getting more of our money. So in November we face initiatives for 5 bonds and 4 new taxes. In the best of circumstances Californians should be skeptical and more debt and newer taxes. Given the wasteful "lowlights" we are reminding people of on the Taxpayer Trust Tour, the potential savings that are on the table, we should be demanding that state leaders do their job and make much better use of the taxes we already pay.

Cato does it again:

Only one governor receives an A this year— Republican Matt Blunt of Missouri. The next two highest-scoring Republicans are Rick Perry of Texas and Mark Sanford of South Carolina. The highest-scoring Democratic governors are John Lynch of New Hampshire and Phil Bredesen of Tennessee.

Who’s the worst governor in America? Blanco and Napolitano tied for the worst score.

Nine governors receive Fs. In alphabetical order, they are Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, Michael Easley of North Carolina, Kenny Guinn of Nevada, Christine Gregoire of Washington, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Ruth Ann Minner of Delaware, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Bob Riley of Alabama, and Brian Schweitzer of Montana.

More here.

They come to this country, don’t assimilate into our culture, and refuse to learn English … Wait that’s not right:

One point on culture:

Latinos watched an average of 9.8 movies in 2005, compared with 7.8 for African Americans and 7 for whites, according to the Motion Picture Assn. of America. In the 2000 census, Latinos made up 12.6% of the U.S. population.

One point on language:

Percentage of Latino teens in a survey on what language they use when they are with friends

English only 49%

Both, but mostly English 28%

Both equally 16%

Both, but mostly Spanish 6%

Spanish only 1%

*

Sources: Motion Picture Assn. of America, Creative Artists Agency

Article here.

Months ago Nick Gillespie made another point about language:

As the Pew Hispanic Center documents, about 80 percent of third-generation Latinos in the United States speak English as their dominant language -- and exactly 0 percent speak Spanish as their dominant language.

A while back I pointed to this NYT piece that suggested that, except for the likes of dopey W, almost everybody is on board with hiking the gas tax. Now WaPo uses the same narrative:

raising taxes on gasoline or crude oil. Economists and policy experts across the political spectrum think it's a good idea. And with gasoline prices falling, now might be the perfect time to do it without eliciting cries of pain from U.S. drivers who have become somewhat accustomed to high fuel prices.

But on the long road to a new energy policy, the idea of a higher gasoline or crude-oil tax is just another bit of roadkill.

And if the NYT’s parade of smarties wasn’t enough for you, here’s another one for the list:

Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard economics professor and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. "A sharp hike in energy taxes on gasoline and other fossil fuels would not only help improve the government's balance sheet, but it would also be a way to start addressing global warming."

Even the Wall Street Journal gets in on the act by publishing a piece by former Bush economist Greg Mankiw:

With the midterm election around the corner, here's a wacky idea you won't often hear from our elected leaders: We should raise the tax on gasoline.

Piece reprinted here.

Some of my arguments against the hike here.

Just got back from Washington, D.C. where I took part in various activities related to a certain book (since we’re still in soft launch mode, I shall withhold my barrage of obnoxious self promotion ... for now).

Anyhow, thanks to Barry Klein for passing along this article about an organization that helps the poor by (gulp) putting them in cars:

Advocates say Ways to Work, which has underwritten $36 million in loans to 24,000 families since it began as a small program in Minnesota in 1984, is part of a new model for social service programs, one that delivers human services aimed at economic self-sufficiency. Borrowers in the program, which is in place at about 50 human services organizations in 25 states, are low-wage workers who have poor credit or no credit. The program is targeted at getting them not just cars, but also decent credit scores and bank accounts.

The nonprofit, which has grown swiftly and hopes to quadruple the number of loans it makes over the next five to six years, has a repayment rate of 90 percent. The program grew nationally with early funding from the McKnight Foundation and loan capital from Bank of America Corp.

Most of the loans are two-year loans for up to $4,000, with interest rates capped at 8 percent and monthly payments capped at $182.
…

A recently released study Ways to Work commissioned found its borrowers reported take-home pay increases averaging 41 percent, with their average annual income growing to $15,312 from $11,904. More than half the recipients said they were able to get better jobs because of their cars. Nearly four out of five parents with young children said they were able to put them into a more satisfactory day care arrangement.

Some results from participants in San Mateo County, California:

the amount of work they miss after getting a car is down 92 percent. Their transit time to work is cut by 91 percent, and more than one-quarter say they have been able to attend job-related education they couldn't have reached without a car.

Sure helping the poor become self-sufficient is all well and good, but aren’t cars, um, bad?

For more on the success of such programs check out chapter 8 in the Brookings Institution book,Taking the High Road. (But if you can buy just one book, you know what to do.)

We’re watching PBS so that you don’t have to…

My dedication to sound telecom policy knows no bounds. But since “The Net at Risk,” the third and final installment of PBS series Moyers on America, aired at 9 p.m. in Houston last night, I was able to mellow out beforehand with a glass of wine. Good thing, too. For those who wish to devote their valuable time to this 90-minute peon to the virtues of government control, it can be viewed here.

What is wrong with this report? Where do I begin?

In an effort to make the case for a number of controversial policy initiatives, “The Net at Risk,” distorts and omits many of the facts about America’s diverse, vibrant and competitive telecommunications industry. Instead, the paints a dark and inaccurate picture of a handful of big corporations poised to strip our Internet and online freedoms in an effort to seize control of this ever dynamic medium.

Anyone in Southern California interested in eminent domain and Proposition 90 should consider attending tomorrow's debate at Chapman Law School, sponsored by the Pacific Legal Foundation. The details are below:
____________________
DEBATE ON PROP. 90/EMINENT DOMAIN TO BE HELD AT CHAPMAN LAW SCHOOL

Pacific Legal Foundation-sponsored event features Assemblyman Ray Haynes, Planning and Conservation League Director Gary Patton, Attorney Timothy Sandefur

October 20, 2006
1:00 p.m.
Chapman Law School, Room 237

What: Symposium on eminent domain issues and debate on Proposition 90. Free to general public. Attorneys may receive 3 CLE units for $15 ($10 for current Federalist Society members).

Where: Chapman Law School, Room 237, One University Drive, Orange, California 92866.

When: Friday, October 20
1:00 p.m. Panel One: History of Eminent Domain and Current Controversies.

3:30 p.m. Panel Two: DEBATE on Prop. 90, which, if passed, would restrict eminent domain and other regulation.

5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Reception.
____________________

More details here.

Here’s a show that looks like it has everything a good work of fiction needs: laughs, chills and, above all, verisimilitude, the art of sounding true while blending fact and fiction to suit the purposes of a good story.

“The Net @ Risk” (complete with that oh-so-90s @), part of the Moyers on America series, airs Wednesday night on PBS to make the case for big government’s interference in all things Internet and Web. While I have not seen the whole show, a look at the clips available at the Moyers on America page gives the impression that Moyers and his team will assert that without network neutrality, municipal broadband, and other government intervention in the market, our First Amendment rights are toast.

We will be treated to one of those soft-spoken narrators who never met and audience he couldn’t talk down to, who will let loose with such whoppers as the data over copper is limited to 1Mb/s (it’s more like 13 Mbs) and that 100 Mb/s fiber connections are required for any sort of interactive audio and video, such as participation in a town meeting. So much for the laughs.

The chills, at least in a South Park sort of way, are supplied in a scene where Joan Blades of Moveon.org and Michele Combs of the Christian Coalition appear on camera together to endorse network neutrality, providing a juxtaposition of radical stereotypes--the aging, wirey-haired ex-hippie and the big-haired, cherub-cheeked, heavily-lipsticked southern evangelical.

As if that isn’t enough, Moyers is going to profile the municipal broadband effort in Lafayette, La., which has been stalled for more than a year because the city hasn’t been able to craft a financing plan compliant with a state law that prohibits municipalities from using revenues from utility monopolies (e.g., electricity) to pay off bonds issued for competitive operations (e.g., broadband). However, it is my suspicion that the producers chose Lafayette because it exists only on paper. They can sidestep the real-world financial problems faced by cities that went ahead with these disastrous plans. Something tells me we won’t hear about Ashland, Ore.; Marietta, Ga.; Lebanon, Ohio; Bristol, Va.; or Provo, Utah, during this program.

But it’s the distortion that will be most troubling. In the preview of the Lafayette segment, Joey Durel, city parish president of Lafayette, tells the camera that without the municipal broadband, Lafayette would have to wait 20 to 30 years for commercial fiber deployment, when, in truth, Cox Cable has been deploying fiber in Lafayette since last year. In the full program, will it be noted that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco effectively blocked cable competition by vetoing a cable franchise reform bill that would have allowed BellSouth to apply for a statewide franchise to offer video?

In the net neutrality preview, the narrator talks about efforts “to restore” net neutrality, even though net neutrality was never encoded as law to begin with. Today, they exist as FCC guidelines, which the commission has shown a willingness to enforce.

I will tune in Wednesday, but with reservations. From the tone of the preview and the press releases that accompany it, it’s clear that the report will come down heavily in favor of government regulation of the Internet. I hope it will at least address some of the potential consequences, mostly unintended, that would likely occur if the government prohibited quality-tiering and packet prioritization of Web applications, or allowed cities and towns to pour millions of dollars into broadband systems that, time after time, have proved neither competitive nor cheap.

Or put differently, climate change happens...

Some apparently think so. Don't miss Brendan O'Neill's excellent piece on calls to silence dissent in the global warming debate. Here's a sample:

Behind the talk of facts and figures we can glimpse the reality: an authoritarian campaign that has no interest whatsoever in engaging us in debate but rather thinks up ‘shrewd’ ways to change the way we behave. From the description of facts as ‘so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken’ to the lumping together of climate change deniers with Holocaust deniers – and even Holocaust practitioners – we can see a creeping clampdown on any genuine, open debate about climate change, science and society. This represents a dangerous denigration of free speech. When George W Bush said after 9/11 ‘You’re either with us or against us’, he was widely criticised. Yet greens, think-tanks, reputable institutions and government ministers are using precisely the same tactic, drawing a line between good and proper people who accept the facts about climate change and those moral lepers who do not; between those who submit to having their common sense nurtured by the powers-that-be and those who dare to doubt or debate.

If anything, the greens’ black-and-white divide is worse than Bush’s. At least his was based on some kind of values, allowing us the opportunity to say yes or no to them; the greens’ divide is based on ‘facts’, which means that those who decide that they are ‘against’ rather than ‘with’ can be labelled liars, deniers or crackpots like moon-landing conspiracy theorists or anti-Semitic historians.

(hat tip: Instapundit)

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago, the U.S. House passed a bill -- The Private Property Rights Implementation Act of 2006 -- that, if ultimately approved, would give private property owners increased protection from regulatory takings. Here's an excerpt from yesterday's Cincinnati Enquirer article on the bill:

A property-rights bill written by U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot - and recently passed by the U.S. House - would allow developers and other property owners to sue in federal court if local zoning regulations restrict the use of their property.

The bill expands the national debate over eminent domain - the principle that allows government to take private property for public use - into a related but more obscure area of the law known as "regulatory takings," in which the government doesn't take the property but decreases its value by restricting what the owner can do with it.

. . .

Chabot said citizens should be allowed to go to federal court when their rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution are violated. And the Fifth Amendment says "no person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

"People deserve the same protections as they would any other constitutional protection, like freedom of speech, freedom of religion - and freedom from having your property taken from you," he said.

. . .

The decision to sue in state or federal court would be a case-by-case decision made by property owners and their lawyers, and there are many practical and legal reasons why zoning disputes would continue to stay in state courts. And Ohio tends to give more weight to property rights, as evidenced by the July decision that found Norwood had violated the constitutional rights of three owners by taking their properties by eminent domain for a shopping and office complex.

. . .

But Chabot said the legislation is less a reaction to Kelo and more in response to a 2004 case, San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco. The city had told the hotel it couldn't convert a residential hotel for use by tourists, and the ordinance was upheld in the California courts. The hotel took the case to federal court - but both the district court and an appeals court ruled that the federal courts couldn't even take up the issue because it had already been decided by the state courts.

This bill would address a serious issue related to regulatory takings, but not the one you might expect. Chabot's bill does not deal with the issue of just compensation for regulatory takings, a la Oregon's Measure 37 and the four measures on the ballot in Arizona, California, Idaho, and Washington this November.

Instead, it would address a serious procedural hurdle that regulatory takings victims face -- the denial of federal court review of their takings claims. In the SCOTUS decision in Williamson County Regional Planning Cammission v. Hamilton Bank, the Court ruled that federal takings claimants had to raise and lose their just compensation claims in state courts before their claims could be reviewed (i.e. were "ripe") in federal court. But this leads to several problems. First, state courts rarely rule in favor of regulatory takings victims. But even worse is that the Williamson County ruling conflicts with the provisions of the Full Faith and Credit Act that require federal courts to follow the decisions of state courts; this involves the legal concept of preclusion, which basically says that a court's final decision on an issue is final and will not be revisited.

So this conflict has trapped regulatory takings victims seeking just compensation through the courts. They can't go to federal court without exhausting the remedies through the state courts, but if the state courts ultimately rule against them, then the federal courts won't hear them, making the victim's only hope that SCOTUS will hear the case, which is unlikely given the limited number of cases they agree to hear in any given year.

Of course, this situation places victims of property rights infringement in a terrible spot. In fact, it singles them out -- others bringing suits based on the infringement of other Constitutional rights (speech, religion, etc.) have the option of pursuing remedies in state or federal courts.

This just provides another illustration of how far the erosion of property rights has gone. We'll defend vigourously our rights to free speech, religion, press, etc., but when it comes to defending THE foundational right underlying our constitutional republic and free market system, we as a society have sat back, turned a blind eye, and let the courts and elected officials run roughshod over them.

Kudos to Rep. Chabot for taking a step to push back against the erosion of property rights protections.

After decades of squabbling between Detroit and its suburbs over water rates, a court-appointed lawyer has been looking into a possible solution that is sure to stir controversy: the prospect of the city selling off the third-largest water system in the country.

F. Thomas Lewand was brought in to work with a group of businessmen, academics and former politicians who have come together to try to solve the long battle between the city and the suburbs. He recently submitted more than $155,000 in legal bills to the court overseer of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, noting that he was researching a sale of the system's assets.

No formal recommendations are expected until spring. But any talk of selling off the system, privatizing it or putting it under the control of a regional authority is certain to generate heated debate.

More here.

Related: More than 25,000 private water systems in U.S.

As voters in California consider two water infrastructure and park bonds on the November ballot, Prop. 1E and Prop. 84, a state Department of Finance audit finds that “only a small fraction of the $10 billion from four environmental bonds voters passed between 2000 and 2002” was misappropriated by a software glitch (Dept. of Water Resources), spent on Red Carpet Club membership (Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy), or used to pay for yoga classes (state Coastal Conservancy). In some muckraking no doubt inspired by the anti-yoga lobby, the Contra Costa Times reports:

The state Coastal Conservancy spent $38,000 in bond funds for questionable purposes, including $29,000 for lobbying in Washington, $5,000 for employee transit subsidies and $3,500 for employee yoga and weight-loss programs in the fiscal year ending June 2005, according to an audit report in March. The conservancy agreed to reimburse the bond funds.

The head of the state Coastal Conservancy, Samuel Schuchat, said his agency's spending on improper items amounted to a small fraction of 1 percent of the $431 million the agency has spent.

Schuchat told auditors that if other funds were unavailable, it would be justifiable to use bond money for employee benefits, including yoga, weight-loss programs and transit. But he backed off that stance in an interview.

"We will not spend bond money for yoga classes," he said. "People will make mistakes and the auditors will hopefully find them so we can fix them. ... That's why you do audits."

So I guess the lesson is, as long as the fraction of environmental bond money spent on yoga classes is less than 1 percent, everything’s good. With Props. 1E and 84 adding up to about $9.5 billion, we’ve got $90,000,000 to spend on yoga classes!

Last week an attorney representing taxpayer interests sent a request to Attorney General Lockyer asking for the recovery of funds allegedly misappropriated by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Conveniently, California law also allows bond funds to be used to reimburse legal expenses.

There are probably quite a few enviros and transit-backers who wish we’d stop asking people to drive less, stop talking about tinkering with the gas tax, and just yank keys away from drivers.

Mexico City tried that, sort of. In 1989 officials introduced a program that bans all vehicles from driving one workday per week based on the last digit of the vehicle's license plate.

Certainly that kind of “get tough” policy would cut emissions and boost transit ridership … Or maybe not.

Matthew Kahn points to a study by University of Michigan’s Lucas W. Davis: The Effect of Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Mexico City.

From the abstract:

Across pollutants and specifications there is no evidence that the program has improved air quality. The policy has caused a relative increase in air pollution during weekends and hours of the day when the restrictions are not in place, but there is no evidence of an absolute improvement in air quality during any hour of the day or any day of the week. Furthermore, while it was hoped that the program would cause drivers to substitute to low-emissions forms of transportation, there is no evidence of increased ridership of the Mexico City subway or public bus system. Instead, evidence from the market for used taxis suggests that the program induced substitution to taxis.

More here.

Related: More unintended consequences here

Queensbury, a small town in the Adirondacks, spends less money on each student than any other public school district in the state. Bridgehampton, a resort town in Long Island, spends six times as much. But when it comes to statewide test scores, it's hard to tell the difference between the two.

In Queensbury, which spent $8,553 per student in the 2004–05 school year, more than 80% of fourth-graders passed state reading exams that same year and more than 90% passed the math tests. The same is true of Bridgehampton, which spends $51,828 on each student, according to a July 2005 state report to the governor and the legislature.

Demographically speaking, we don’t know if we have an apples-to-apples comparison. But, if anything, it seems like the kids from swanky Bridgehampton would have the advantage there.

Back to the bigger question: Does money matter?

"What we've found over time is that money is neither necessary nor sufficient to ensure high performance," a senior economist at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Eric Hanushek, said. He is the editor of "Courting Failure," a book coming out Monday …

"Some schools spend a lot and get good performance and some spend a lot and get bad performance," he said. "If you go ahead and try to adjust for what the kids look like. … It doesn't help the picture, you get the same picture."
…
An analyst at the Manhattan Institute, Sol Stern, who is a contributor to "Courting Failure," says that even as spending per pupil doubled in New York City over the past decade, performance hasn't improved.

"If you watch what happened in New York City education budgets, you'll see that pupil spending went up," he said. "And eighth grade reading scores are as flat as they ever were."

Article here.

In this NYT piece Daniel Gross makes the often-made point that our gas taxes are really low when compared to other industrialized nations.

The International Energy Agency provides this breakdown of Average Gas Taxes Per Gallon (as of Aug 2006):

Britain $4.24
Germany $3.99
France $3.80
Italy $3.75
Japan $2.07
Canada $1.03
U.S. $0.40 (includes state and federal taxes)

Gross makes another often-made point: the last time we increased the federal gas tax was waaaay back in 1993.

And then comes a rather new point: many Republican economists (or economists associated with the Rs) are coming out in favor of hiking the gas tax. Alan Greenspan, Greg Mankiw, Andrew Samwick, and others say it’s a good idea and many leftish economists have been saying this for a long time. Makes it seem like there’s a new consensus emerging.

But the piece leaves out some pretty significant points.

Many people want to hike gas taxes to reduce driving and—while it’s true that Europeans drive less than we do—the gap is closing. In fact, even with ultra-high gas taxes, driving is increasing in Europe. It’s been increasing faster there than in the states.

Also, if you want to talk consensus, the real consensus among economists is for road pricing. No pricing results in more congestion, which results in 2.3 billion gallons of wasted gas each year.

And Sam’s last post suggests that higher gas taxes might make pricing a tougher sell politically. Seems like the higher gas taxes get the more likely motorists are to complain about “double taxation.” Expect more of this: “We already pay so much at the pump, and now you want us to pay a toll!”

[But if the “look what Europe does” argument helps raise gas taxes, can we use it to lower corporate tax rates? See this, this, and this]

The United Kingdom is in the forefront of debates over road pricing. This article from the Transportation News Network has a revealing set of questions for those (like Reason Foundation) that support various pricing strategies:

Speaking at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress debate on road pricing at ExCel in London today (Tuesday 10 October), James Hookham, FTA's Deputy Chief Executive, identified three potential road user reactions that politicians will need to overcome if road pricing is to be introduced nationally as the Government intends.

1. Why should I pay more when I already pay the most?British road users already pay the highest fuel taxes in Europe at 47.1 p per litre, so why should the Government help itself to even more of their hard earned money?
The economic arguments of the need to pay the external costs of transport or the marginal social costs of road space will be hard pressed to overcome the injustice long felt by many road users about being the most highly taxed in Europe.

2. Why should I pay more when the service gets worse?

Road pricing works by charging the road user more as roads become more congested. This is intended to dissuade journeys being made at congested times. Fine if you are an economist, but if you are a road user experiencing congestion and the cost of your journey has just gone up because of the delay, then you will find yourself paying a lot more for a much poorer service from the road network. It is like charging more for the food at a supermarket checkout because there are long queues, hoping that some people will put their goods back and go home. It would not be tolerated in the shops and those same consumers will take some persuading that this is fair on the roads.

3. Why should I pay when foreigners get to use the roads for free?

Making foreign vehicles visiting the UK pay their fair share of road wear and tear costs has long been an aim of road pricing schemes aimed at lorries. With an estimated one in seven of the heaviest vehicles on UK roads coming from overseas, the road wear costs attributed to these vehicles is in the order of 240 million each year.
But enforcing road pricing will require much better information about the ownership and identity of any non-UK based company operating trucks in the UK.

Does a public transit agency exist to provide a service or to provide jobs?

If DC’s Metro exists to provide a transportation service, then it might consider outsourcing instead of hiring $40,000/yr window washers and $100,000/yr mechanics and bus riders.

Then it might have enough dough to cater to customers by, say, fixing escalators:

Riders who are sick of dealing with Metro's broken escalators may have a new option: walking up a flight of stairs.

The transit agency's latest idea on how to reduce costs and cut down on wear and tear of its chronically broken escalators is to rip out the shortest ones and replace them with a set of low-tech, low-maintenance steps.

More here.

We’ve know about the health benefits of moderate drinking for quite some time. Then came a Reason study that finds that drinkers (and not just moderate ones) earn more than abstainers. Now this:

[R]esearchers at Harvard and South Florida University have found that teenage males who binge drink earn more as adults.

After correcting for factors like drug use or dysfunctional family backgrounds, the researchers found that male teenage binge-drinkers earned on average 6% more than non-bingers as adults.

Pinka Chatterji, of Harvard, and Jeffrey DeSimone, of South Florida, analysed an American survey that had followed over 12,000 students from 1988, tracking them from their teenage years into adulthood.

Not so fast to the keg-stand line, ladies:

Sadly for binge drinking girls, there's no benefit to them from binge drinking, as it doesn't seem to affect their wages or job prospects in later life at all.

Now for the question of why:

Chatterji and DeSimone aren't sure why getting wazzocked as a teenager helps men get better pay over a decade later – but they suspect that it has something to do with social tendencies that lead teens to binge drink also being useful in the workplace.

'Our theory is that some difficult-to-measure trait, such as having good social skills and being popular among peers, underlies this association,' say the researchers.

More here.

Another sign that telecommuting is moving from emerging innovation to commonplace practice:

Most companies now offer workers the option to work from home, satellite offices and other locations, according to a survey conducted by Philadelphia-based Yoh Services, a provider of talent and outsourcing services. The survey also found that most Human Resources (HR) managers expect the use of telecommuting to increase over the next two years.

"We learned that companies need to build a product that says, 'if you come and work for us here's what you're going to have: a casual work environment, a flexible schedule' -- whatever that may be," said Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing for Yoh. "Companies are realizing that in order to attract the best people to come work for their companies they need to create an environment that's conducive to do that."

Yoh surveyed 198 HR managers at the Society for Human Resource Management 2006 Conference and Exposition in June about their company's telecommuting policies. The results of the survey were just released this week.

According to the survey, 81 percent of hiring managers now have policies that allow employees to work remotely. In addition, 67 percent of hiring managers believe the number of employees who work remotely will grow by 2008.

Respondents to Computerword’s most recent annual Best Places to Work in IT survey cited telecommuting as an important facet of their jobs, with 36 percent calling it “extremely important.”

More here.

Related: The Telecommuting Trend

What could be worse than having a government monopoly run schools? Perhaps having “outsiders” run them.

NYT headline: City Considers Plans to Let Outsiders Run Schools

In what would be the biggest change yet to the way New York City’s school system is administered, officials are considering plans to hire private groups at taxpayer expense to manage scores of public schools. …

The move would further Chancellor Joel I. Klein’s earlier efforts to tear apart the traditional bureaucracy of the nation’s largest school system, giving principals greater autonomy and increasing the role of the private sector. It could put private entities like the College Board, the Urban Assembly and Expeditionary Learning-Outward Bound on contract to manage networks of schools as soon as the 2007-8 school year.

One unnamed education official says such talk is “a way to crush public education.”

How could New Yorkers trust those outsiders?

Under the new arrangement, the groups would oversee the schools and be held responsible for their results. They would be locked into contract terms and could be fired if student achievement lags.

Compare that to the status quo. For example, good luck firing an incompetent teacher.

One of the most hotly debated questions is whether the city would hire profit-making companies like Edison Schools Inc., which manages more than 20 schools in Philadelphia and has expressed interest in bidding on a city contract.

More here.

1. Charlotte’s light rail line shot up in price yet again:

City officials recently found out the light rail project will cost an estimated $462 million, $35.9 million more than the last estimate, due to design and other problems. Eight years ago, when the project began, the estimated cost was $227 million.

2. The local paper continues to support light rail.

Case in point: This piece by UNC-Charlotte Chancellor Phillip Dubois.

He wants the debate to be “more mature”:

We cannot afford to view light rail simply as a cost; we must see it for the long-term investment it represents in the future of this community.

But wait, there’s more: “[N]othing could be more important to [UNC-Charotte’s] long-term future than light rail …”

Wow—really? It’s more important than attracting top-notch students and professors?

3. Local officials in other cities continue to pine for rail.

A vision of the light rail system that could link Downtown and Midtown to the Memphis International Airport rolled onto the Main St. Trolley tracks Tuesday at Central Station.

Memphis Area Transit Authority officials arranged for the Siemens S70 light rail vehicle, which is being shipped from Sacramento, Calif., to Charlotte, N.C., to stop in Memphis for a public viewing Wednesday.

4. Coverage from rail-free cities continues to look at rail through rose-colored glasses.

In the Memphis article there’s no mention of the troubles Charlotte has encountered. Apparently, the fact that rail has broken ground proves it’s successful. After all, if it wasn’t good policy, politicians wouldn’t keep building it, right?

Another misleading point:

The Siemens car is capable of reaching speeds of up to 65 miles per hour…

I bet that sounds awfully good to gridlock-wearing motorists. It's certainly much speedier than rush-hour traffic. Too bad light rail’s average operating speed is only 16 mph.

For the latest developments in Charlotte, check out The Meck Deck.

The California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights sent around this nice summary of recent property rights legislation signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger. Some good minor bits, but a long ways from any real restoration of property rights protections, or what Proposition 90 would provide.

SB 53 (Kehoe) - Reduces the time period during which a redevelopment agency may use eminent domain, and requires a redevelopment agency to place a description of the agency's program for acquiring real property by eminent domain in its redevelopment plan.

Read analysis on this bill by the Pacific Legal Foundation.

SB 1206 (Kehoe) – Further defines the requirements property must meet to be considered blighted and requires bureaucratic reports be filed by the condemning agency.

Read analysis on this bill.

SB 1210 (Torlakson) – Makes changes to certain processes that relate to the taking of property by eminent domain.

Read analysis on this bill.

SB 1650 (Kehoe) – Places restrictions on a public agencies ability to use acquired land for a purposes other than the one originally stated or after a specified length of time.

Read analysis on this bill.

SB 1809 (Machado) – Amends the amount of time that local legislative bodies have to record a statement upon the adoption of a redevelopment plan, and places requirements on the format of these documents.

Read analysis on this bill.

Marc Kilmer, a research associate specializing in technology issues with the Buckeye Institute in Ohio, isn’t letting city leaders in Lebanon, Ohio, simply declare victory and go home on their multi-million-dollar municipal broadband boondoggle.

The city is in the process of unloading the system to Cincinnati Bell.

Of the ten-year project, which never made any money and was never competitive with commercial cable and DSL services, Derrick Zucco, head of Lebanon’s telecommunications department, said, “We've accomplished what we wanted to do and now want to focus on core services—police, fire and road.” Of course, some would say that the Lebanon government should never have stopped focusing on police, fire and road to fiddle around with what amounted to a costly broadband venture.

With some unpleasant financial facts, Kilmer throws some cold water on the feel-good fest:

What exactly has the city accomplished? It ran up over $9 million in debt, diverted taxpayer money from other departments to prop up the system, and used city resources to battle a variety of legal challenges related to the telecommunications department. If this is how city leaders define success, I would hate to hear their definition of failure.

Unfortunately, this sale will only partially rectify these past injustices to city taxpayers. For one, the $8.62 million offered to the city by Cincinnati Bell will only cover payment on the bonds taken out by the city to finance the system. The city’s electric fund also loaned the system over $2 million. Those funds will not be recovered by the sale.

Furthermore, the city extracted almost $900,000 from city taxpayers in telecom permits. While an appeals court stopped the city from collecting any more money, ruling that the practice was unconstitutional, there is no evidence that the city will return this improperly collected money.

Full commentary here.

And, despite all this, other municipalities seem bent on making the same mistakes, as Kilmer cites here.

There was once a time when you could count on lefties to defend free speech, but that time has passed. Today those who came of age during the Berkeley free speech movement are the ones sticking universities with sickening speech codes.

There once was a time when you could count on conservatives to keep spending in check, but that time has passed.

And for all its socialist wackiness, there once was a time when you could count on France to stand up for personal liberties, by for example, resisting the Puritanical American mindset that is so bent on banning smoking.

Sadly, that time might soon pass:

French smokers were making a painful mental adjustment as a parliamentary committee recommended a ban on smoking in public areas from next year and the government indicated it will act quickly on the advice.

It means that from September smoking in French bars, restaurants and nightclubs could be completely prohibited -- unless they provide hermetically-sealed "fumoirs" into which serving staff are not allowed to penetrate.

More here.

Reason Foundation's first Roundtable feature, Global Warming and Potential Policy Solutions, includes commentary and responses by Donald J. Boudreaux, Julian Morris, Shikha Dalmia, Jerry Taylor, Henry Payne, and others. Read it here.

Please feel free to join the debate in the comments section below.