Biting the Subsidizing Hand

Posted on 2007-11-29 by David

A local example of the negative effect of subsidies is playing out right now. Lehi citizens have been paying taxes to support services that benefit people in Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain. The result is that the people in those cities are unaware of the real costs of the services that many of them take for granted in Lehi. It sounds like they are about to find out what those costs really are.

Saratoga Springs’s commitment to a proposed freeway through Lehi appears to have cost its residents access to Lehi community programs.

Call it retaliation or tough love, Lehi is moving to make it expensive and harder for Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs residents to join community programs, or even be buried, in Lehi.

Lehi Councilman Johnny Barnes gave a letter to Lehi Council members on Tuesday asking that beginning Jan. 1, participation in all community programs “be restricted to Lehi citizens first.”

Residents from nearby communities may be invited to participate if there is space, but “the costs to those participants will reflect the actual cost of the programs,” said Barnes.

Council members instructed staff to begin figuring new fees and participation rules for the council to consider.

Councilman Stephen Holbrook said the day has come for Lehi to make recreation fees for nonresidents “extremely higher, so our citizens can have first choice” and that increase should extend not only to sports programs but library use, senior citizen programs, park rentals, the literacy center, and burial fees.

“Two weeks ago in a pre-council meeting there were comments made concerning a letter sent out by Mayor Tim Parker of Saratoga Springs indicating their strong support of UDOT’s (freeway) plan for 2100 North,” Barnes wrote in his letter to council members. “I stated that in my opinion, this was a clear demonstration of Saratoga coming of age as a city, and felt that if they want to be a city, they need to act like a city.

“In making this statement, I hold firmly to the opinion that along with having the right to take a strong aggressive position comes the right and obligation to provide services to their citizens. This would include all services, not just the ones that are convenient to them or are able to be funded.”

How did this all come about?

Well Lehi has been very accommodating of the burgeoning cities to the west and now that because of that our city council is very aware of the costs of the services that they are virtually giving away. Though this act may be seen as retaliation by some, it makes sense that we should not be too concerned about the costs of restricting access to our programs for people who are apparently uninterested in the costs we will suffer as a result of their preferred freeway.

It’s all a matter of perspective but Saratoga Springs does not appear to care about the Lehi perspective on this project. I recognize that there are aspects of the Mountain View Corridor project that Saratoga would have a perspective that would be lacking in Lehi, but if those cities want to leech off of the programs that have matured here in Lehi then they should be willing to work with us.

The mayor of Saratoga could not be ignorant of Lehi’s vocal concern over the 2100 North alignment preferred by UDOT. If he cared about them then he should have made a better case for why Lehi’s 4800 North proposal was inferior. Everything I have seen suggests that 2100 North is marginally better for anyone who is just passing through Lehi than the plan proposed by Lehi, but it is substantially worse for residents of Lehi.

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Anti-Materialism

Posted on 2007-11-28 by David

From two very different sources today I was pointed toward two very similar views regarding our overly materialistic society. Misty Fowler linked to Winning the Rat Race by Quitting it:

We are a country obsessed with consumption, which would be fine if we seemed to be fulfilled getting bigger TVs but having less time to watch them. But, in the aggregate, that’s not the case. . .

So why the ceaseless search for stuff? In a word, competition. It’s worth it to stay ahead in the rat race. . . Winning the competition is more important than having a yard, it turns out. Which is why economists call these “positional goods” — goods whose worth is deeply tied into their position vis-a-vis your direct “competitors” (which is to say neighbors, friends, etc.).

On the other hand, not all goods are positional. Some make us happy simply because they make us happy. Another question asked whether respondents would prefer a world in which they had two weeks of vacation and everyone else got one, or a world in which they had four weeks of vacation and everyone else got eight. Here, positional concerns did not interject, and the majority chose the larger number of days off. The amount of time your neighbor spends with his family does not diminish the amount of time you spend with yours.

The problem is, positional goods tend to appear to be the most pressing purchases. . . And because money is finite, these purchases “crowd out” what you could spend on more enduring generators of happiness — forcing you, for instance, to work more hours to support a larger mortgage than you needed, thus losing the time you could otherwise spend enjoying family and friends, and leaving you less happy.

But there’s an easy solution. Stop. Pull out of the competition. Seriously ask whether you want to continue trading away your time for your stuff. And that requires ignoring what your neighbors have. It requires shutting your eyes against short-term incentives and trying to remember what actually makes you happy.

Tim Ferriss wrote about a group that is doing just that – and they have been doing it for two years.

The group called themselves The Compact, after the Mayflower Compact, and pledged that for the entire year, they would purchase secondhand or borrow everything they needed, except for food and essentials like toiletries and medicine. . .

Sounds hard? They say it wasn’t. They shopped less overall and got creative when they needed specific items. They reserved “shopping” for times when there was something they really couldn’t do without. When Perry needed a pressure cooker to prepare vegetarian dishes for his partner and their two children, he found a used one on the Internet. Pelmas and her husband, who are renovating their home, found secondhand appliances and recycled wood for baseboards and cabinets. But they were stumped by how to find used nails, screws, and hinges, and broke down and bought them new instead — the only time they cheated. Pelmas also struggled with finding sports sunglasses for rowing. Never able to find a used pair, she taped up her old ones and kept using them instead. . .
About 8,000 people have joined the e-mail list The Compact created to discuss the project, and groups modeled after The Compact have sprouted in 38 communities across the United States and in countries including Romania, New Zealand, and Japan. You can read more about The Compact on its blog at sfcompact.blogspot.com.

We have not gone so extreme as The Compact, but we have learned that we are happier as we have consciously tried to avoid falling into the trap of wanting everything we are supposed to want. I don’t need a second car and I don’t need a new computer every couple of years. Instead we try to make decisions about what will bring us happiness without reference to what anyone else has or wants.

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SEP Subsidies

Posted on 2007-11-28 by David

A story this morning instantly made me think about the discussion that followed when I wrote about Funding Mass Transit back in July. This story is about a driver who chose to use biofuel in his vehicle:

Bob Teixeira decided it was time to take a stand against U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

So last fall the Charlotte musician and guitar instructor spent $1,200 to convert his 1981 diesel Mercedes to run on vegetable oil. He bought soybean oil in 5-gallon jugs at Costco, spending about 30 percent more than diesel would cost.

His reward, from a state that heavily promotes alternative fuels: a $1,000 fine last month for not paying motor fuel taxes. He has been told to expect another $1,000 fine from the federal government.

To legally use veggie oil, state officials told him, he would have to first post a $2,500 bond.

SEP stands for somebody else’s problem. It refers to things that are in plain sight but we rarely (if ever) think about them. (from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) Fuel taxes are one of those things. Because of their SEP nature we rarely think about the cost of maintaining roads. Most people drive their cars everywhere without a single thought for the wear they are putting on public infrastructure. They blithely fill their vehicle without thinking about the silent tax that they pay without question. The only time people think about gas taxes is when their is a proposal to increase them. They never think about them otherwise no matter how underfunded the roads become.

I’m not saying that this unconscious approach is necessarily bad, but it is not unlike our health care problem where we fail to recognize the actual costs associated with the types of care we partake of and thus we don’t consider whether that cost is worth the benefit that we receive. (In most cases it is, but how often do people run to the pharmacy or the operating room when a lifestyle change would be a better – though harder – solution?)

Because it is so easy to pay the fuel taxes it is difficult to accurately compare the costs of using cars vs mass transit. Until that comparison can be made we can only guess at the best approach to hit the moving target that is our traffic problem. Right now we usually only hit on a solution when traffic comes to a standstill.

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Useless 401K

Posted on 2007-11-26 by David

Why is it that the government gets to tell me when I can spend my money?

That’s a question I have asked myself many times. The “you can’t touch it until you’re 60” rule is proof of why it is not the business of government to get involved in what private citizens do with their money (within the bounds of the law). I remember hearing a story from the Romney campaign about Mitt Romney sitting down with his sons at dinner and asking them about their savings. He was surprised to learn that none of them had any savings in the form of 401K or IRA accounts. Their reasoning was that they could not afford to lock up money in that kind of long term plan because they would not be prepared if they had any financial emergency. I remember thinking “I can relate to that.” For Mitt Romney the result was that he now proposes a Tax Free Savings Policy:

Governor Romney Will Make Middle Class Savings Tax Free. Governor Romney’s plan will allow middle class Americans to save tax free by changing the tax rate on interest, capital gains and dividends to absolutely 0%. By helping more Americans save and invest, we can meet the challenges of an aging population and ensure the financial security of America.

– Governor Romney’s Plan Will Allow Over 95% Of American Families To Save And Invest Tax-Free. Any taxpayer with Adjusted Gross Income of under $200,000 would pay a tax rate of absolutely 0% on all of the income they earn from their savings, capital gains and dividends.

My experience has been that I got a job and could not contribute to the 401K plan at the company for 6 months – of course that was when I was technically working as a contractor from a temp agency. At the end of the 6 months my job status changed to being a direct employee of the company and the clock restarted on their waiting period before I could contribute to their 401K plan. I had hardly begun contributing to that 401K plan after their waiting period before the company started downsizing and I was out of a job. I now work for a very small company that does not offer a 401K so I have to roll over my pittance from the other plan into a personal IRA, but I can’t actually invest the money until I have many time more money than I would be rolling over. My current company offers a 403B but there is no guarantee of their matching anything I contribute so the incentive is absent.

As I was contemplating that predicament I also started to consider the implications of contributing to either a 401K, a 403B, or an IRA – anything I might put in any of those would be locked away. What if I had a need, or what if I wanted to retire early? If I put my savings in any of those I would have to have a separate means of savings to fund an early retirement. Essentially the government is locking me into working for at least 30 years unless I have a very lucrative career.

From my perspective the tax-free savings policy sounds like a good thing. I hope it gets enacted. Maybe our current lame-duck president could start pushing for it. If he did I can guarantee that I would view him more favorably at the end of his term than I currently view him.

Posted in General | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

NYT On Health Care

Posted on 2007-11-24 by David

I was impressed with the New York Times editorial The High Cost of Health Care. I don’t really have time to review it here right now (it’s quite long) but it is well worth the read and I would like to come back to it later to review it. They talk about some of the approaches to lowering our health care costs, but they don’t attempt to endorse any particular approach. I hope, and believe, that this was an attempt to paint a broad picture in advance of future articles which will explore the issue in more depth.

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Many Primary Ideas

Posted on 2007-11-20 by David

There are a variety of ideas for how we can fix our primary election process. They range from a lottery system proposed in comments and a post earlier on my site to more authoritative proposals such as rotating regional primaries as outlined by Trey Grason (go to page 25 of the PDF – hat tip the Senate Site)

Unfortunately, it is too late to fix the process for 2008, but steps can be taken for 2012. The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) is hoping to generate support for rotating regional primaries as a step toward that goal. The association’s bipartisan proposal, created by the nation’s chief state election officials, divides the country into four regions and establishes primary windows in March, April, May and June.

I was also interested in the proposal published in the New York Times by Jonathan Soros suggesting a national primary day where individual voters could opt to vote early.

There is, however, a simple way to establish a national primary and yet still allow retail politicking to meaningfully affect the course of the campaign over several months: allow early voting, with regular reporting of the tally.

Here’s one way it could work. Set a national primary date of June 30 and create a window for early voting that opens on Jan. 1. The early votes would be counted and reported at the end of each month from January through May. . .
If we began counting and reporting the interim results in advance of a national primary, the voters who cast early ballots would play the same role as voters in Iowa and New Hampshire do now: they could signal viability or create momentum for their favored candidates. These early voters would be self-selecting, trading the opportunity to watch the campaign unfold for the ability to demonstrate early conviction.

Most important, every voter, no matter where he or she lived, would have the freedom to make this choice. Right now, when one votes is determined by where one lives.

The national primary day has drawbacks, but I’m sure there are detractors to the rotating regional primaries as well and I know there are those who gripe about the lottery idea. I’m not ready to advocate for one idea over another, and I’m sure that all of them would offer an overall improvement over the current mess. What I would really like to see is an widespread, active, and public conversation now – not sometime after 2009 – to decide how we would like this system to operate because the current setup is going to lead to perpetual campaigning (like having candidates declaring six months into the four year cycle) unless we take steps to rein it in.

Posted in National | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Utah Legislative Tenure

Posted on 2007-11-16 by David

First I would like to thank Steve Urquhart for his comments. And in case anyone got the wrong impression, I had no intention to spar with Steve over this issue or single him out. I respect Rep. Urquhart for his openness on this and many other issues. He has convincingly demonstrated his honest belief that “sunlight [is] the best disinfectant.” The major reason that I singled him out is that I know that he is one member of the legislature that understands the value of blogging discussions.

All that being said, this post is mainly some of my further findings after his comments to my previous post. He said that term limits came in a wave in 1994, but it would be more accurate to say that 1994 was the tail end of the wave. 15 states enacted term limits before 1994, 3 more (including Utah) did so in 1994, and 3 have enacted term limits since 1994. Of the 6 states that have repealed their term limit laws (that’s 28% of states that had such laws), it appears that none of those laws ever lasted long enough to limit the term of any legislator. No state where term limits actually started limiting terms has gone back. My assessment would be that Utah retreated from that legislation prematurely.

The second part of Steve’s response was quite enlightening:

Of course, I realize that people can, and will, argue that we just want to hold the offices for life. That’s their right, and for some legislators it might be true. But people should consider the average lifespan of a legislator. In the House (largely through self-selection), it is right around 4 years. (I heard that number and have never independently verified it; but, it seems accurate. I’ve been there 7 years, and there aren’t many Reps who’ve been there longer than I have).

Since he had not verified the 4 year average I went to the website for the Utah Legislature (a very good site, by the way) and did some quick checking on the 75 members of the house and all 29 senators. In the Senate the mean term length is 7 years with an average of 6.93 so by the time we next have elections the average term will be sitting at 8 years (the longest current term being 18). 14 of the 29 have served between 3 and 7 years, most of the other 15 have served more than 7 years.

In the House, where Steve serves, the mean length of current consecutive service is 5 years with an average of about 5.2 so the average will be 6 years before we next vote. The are a number of representatives who have served 3 years or less consecutively who have previously served in the House, sometimes for more than a decade. If we factor in lifetime service for these representatives the average goes up to nearly 5.5 years. About 70% of the members of the house have served no longer than Steve, although there are many who have served 7 years like he has.

It is comforting to see that we have a pretty good rate of turnover in our state and I hope that it stays that way. So long as we have consistent turnover I think we need to focus more on correcting the imbalance of power between the major parties – as Obi wan had suggested – at least here in Utah.

Posted in State | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Term Limits

Posted on 2007-11-14 by David

I asked what people were interested in and the interest seemed to be term limits. I decided to do some initial research and found a good resource on term limits. The states that currently have term limits are:

  • ARIZONA
  • ARKANSAS
  • CALIFORNIA
  • COLORADO
  • FLORIDA
  • LOUISIANA
  • MAINE
  • MICHIGAN
  • MISSOURI
  • MONTANA
  • NEBRASKA
  • NEVADA
  • OHIO
  • OKLAHOMA
  • SOUTH DAKOTA

In addition I was surprised to find that Utah was on a short list of states where term limits had been enacted and later repealed.

  • IDAHO
  • MASSACHUSETTS
  • OREGON
  • UTAH
  • WASHINGTON
  • WYOMING

A little more digging and I learned that Utah enacted term limits by statute in 1994 (just before I was paying close attention to politics) and repealed them in 2003 before they ever affected any legislators (the limit was 12 years and the statute only lasted for 9). So now we know that our Utah legislature is not anxious to limit themselves.

Now I would love to hear from anyone who has experience in the states with term limits. Jason has voiced his unqualified support of the limits in his state. Does anyone else want to share? Are there any opinions on lifetime bans versus limits of consecutive years of service? I am not ready to choose sides on that yet.

I would also be interested to know more about the decision to end limits before they began in Utah. Perhaps Steve Urqhart might have some insights there that he would share (hint – information from 2003, or hints on where to get some would be nice because my short search led to a bunch of dead links).

Posted in State | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Step Forward on Education

Posted on 2007-11-12 by David

There has been lots of talk since November 6th about moving on to improve education after the defeat of vouchers. People on both sides of that debate have talked about working together towards a common goal. I have been happy with the tone of talk, but I have wondered what is the next concrete step that we can approach to demonstrate our genuine interest in improving education. After reading The People Have Spoken, and Fans and Foes Vow to Work for Change I have had an idea of where to take a next step.

I’ve never heard a credible argument against merit-pay or performance-based pay for teachers. Does this mean that I have not heard enough discussion on the subject or is it evidence that this might be an area where people who want to improve education can agree? I think that an effort to bring performance-based pay for our teachers would make a great demonstration of our commitment to making changes to improve our education system.

Posted in State | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Issues To Vote On

Posted on 2007-11-09 by David

While casting about for something to write today I began thinking about what issues are important to me. There are many political subjects I am interested in, but not always new material to write about. Sometimes there is discussion worth following that I don’t feel I have anything to add (like the current warm-fuzzies coming from the "let’s move on from referendum 1" discussion). Other times the news is truly dead or full of things I have no interest in. At those times I have subjects that I am interested in, but I am looking to discuss the issues and not just pontificate in a vacuum. The question is, what should I discuss that other people are interested in?

The answer seemed obvious – ask.

If I were talking about what modifications to our primary election system who would be interested? What if I were talking about the value of term limits for elected officials?

Based on past experience there seems to be some interest in those subjects, but I would like to hear whether others think those are worth discussing and would be interested in participating in such a discussion. Please let me know which of these would interest you – "both" and "neither" are perfectly valid answers.

Posted in meta | Tagged , | 11 Comments