. . . because much of the content relates both to Washington, D.C., and "outside the beltway" -- the heartland, specifically Iowa -- and because after going from Iowa to Washington via Texas and California I subsequently returned, From DC 2 Iowa.
May 31, 2007, 9:45 a.m., 12:30 p.m. (addition of "$300 Billion Motel 6")
This morning's theme is how our efforts to compromise can sometimes lead us to the worst of all possible choices. The examples: Search Committee II's plans for UI presidential candidates' campus visits; the petition proposing restrictions on bar entry by those under the legal drinking age; and what Gregg Easterbrook has called NASA's proposal for a $300 billion "Motel 6 on the Moon."
Search Committee II's Campus Visits
Let me make this clear up front: We owe a big round of applause to Search Committee II's chair, Dean Johnsen, and the members of the committee. It takes hours of effort to find the needle in a haystack -- or as it used to be put, "You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince." (See, e.g., "Select the Employees.") Moreover, lest you are unaware, these folks are not paid for this time, nor do they really get anything like the credit from the academy that they would have received had they used the time to produce one or two additional academic articles to cite on their CVs. Notwithstanding the raging "open meetings" controversy (pro and con) regarding their closed sessions they have made a real effort to open their process as much as they felt they could. Moreover, I'm assuming (without knowing) that they will end up offering the Regents an excellent field of four or more from which the Regents can, finally, chose a UI president -- as we approach "UI Held Hostage Day 500."
However, the procedure they've chosen for campus visits strikes me as one of those compromises that combines the worst of all options. Brian Morelli, "Committee Zeroes In On Schedule,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 31, 2007, p. A3.
I've advocated more openness regarding candidates' identities, and the necessity of campus visits, since Search Committee II began its deliberations last January. I've also advocated that it make clear from the get-go -- for the benefit of the candidates themselves among other things -- whether it would, or would not, have campus visits (rather than waiting until now, as they have done).
The Committee, however, took the position that for a sitting president or provost to have it known that they would actually stoop to being considered for the UI presidency would cause such enormous harm to their professional reputation that the Committee would lose the opportunity to retain some of their very best candidates.
While I've never thought that to be the case, Search Committee II members did. Taking them at their word, and that being the case, I've never understood why, if secrecy is such a top priority, it's somehow OK to reveal the candidates' identities during a three-day campus visit but not a two-week campus visit, or why it's OK to reveal the identities of five or seven candidates, but not 20.
Not only does this procedure breach what candidates and Committee members alike have made a condition of the highest priority, it also doesn't offer much in the way of benefit.
As I wrote yesterday, and quoted prior search committee members as saying, much of the benefit of having candidates' identities known early is the flow of information that can produce about them that is otherwise unavailable. Nicholas Johnson, "Search Committee II Meeting Today; Campus Visits Plan" in "UI Held Hostage Day 494 - Healthcare, Search, Downtown," May 30, 2007. When thousands (rather than a dozen committee members) are potentially involved in networking with their thousands of contacts then orders of magnitude more information about these candidates becomes available -- both positive and negative -- that is extremely relevant to the final selection.
Thus, to truncate the visits, and indeed the time for the final decision, results in our incurring what one must assume is an enormous cost (the candidates' loss of secrecy) without providing the benefits that would come from longer campus visits and the networking that could have occurred had the identities been known a month ago.
Logic, Loopholes and Liquor
From the whirling dervish to a daiquiri in a whirling blender humankind has long been addicted to a variety of means for altering consciousness.
Of all the available means, alcohol is one of the most popular. So much so that it is now, by any measure, our nation's number one hard drug problem: numbers of people adversely affected by those who are alcoholic or alcohol abusers; its association with roughly half of all crime; permanent medical harm up to and including death; and the economic impact from property damage, lost time on the job, and so forth. In the college environment alcohol abuse and binge drinking are also associated with rape, unwanted pregnancies and abortions; fights and other physical violence; drunk driving; missed classes, poor academic performance, and increased numbers of dropouts; and even deaths from accidents and suicides.
Earlier this week when I inquired of a waiter in a local restaurant about an odd-shaped scar on his forehead he explained, "Oh, that? It's just from a fight; I got hit with a beer bottle."
The law school is just across the street from a dorm cafeteria that serves a wide variety of tasty food at reasonable prices in an attractive setting. Usually when I eat there it is with colleagues. But occasionally I go alone and end up visiting over lunch with an undergraduate. Occasionally the conversation turns to the matter of binge drinking (alcohol consumption, not for sociability, but to get drunk). Most admit to it, averaging more than once a week, with a tinge of pride. "Everybody does it."
Clearly, everyone doesn't do it. But enough do to rank the University of Iowa as one of the top binge drinking schools in the country. Even the college paper has a Thursday entertainment and drinking section called "80 Hours." Bear in mind, an entire week has only 168 hours. Why wait to start drinking until Saturday night when, with some attention to scheduling classes, the drinking can begin on Thursdays and you can spend a half of every week doing it?
Recently I visited in that dorm cafeteria with what turned out to be a freshman woman. (I did not ask for, and do not know, her name.) I inquired about her attendance at local bars. I tried not to reflect my shock as she went on detailing for me (a) the social pressure to go to the bars, and (b) how extremely easy it is for under-age (i.e., law breaking) undergraduates to order liquor in Iowa City's bars. (There are 40 to 50 within an easy walk from campus.) She explained how one goes about getting fake ID cards, how sloppy the supervision is in the bars, how you get a 21-year-old to order for you and then slip them the money under the table. The "stupid things" one has to avoid to kept from getting caught. It was all so matter-of-fact for this recent high school graduate who had obviously been a quck study.
The fact is, nobody really cares. The students enjoy the ease with which they can get drunk. The bar owners are making big time money from the students. The City Council follows former House Speaker Sam Rayburn's advice: "If you want to get along, go along." The University only gets concerned when a student dies in their own vomit, falls off a building, or drowns. Over the past 20 years we've spent millions from "Stepping Up" and other foundations and agencies -- and produced nothing but increased stepping up to the bar.
So the "radical proposed solution" -- that bar owners will defeat at the polls, and City Council members don't want to touch with their ten-foot poles -- is that the illegal, under-age drinkers be run out of the bars at 10 p.m. "Petition Approved for 21 Ordinance,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 31, 2007, p. 3A.
Even if the Council, or the voters, were to adopt this proposal, and even if the under-21 crowd would be easily identified and run out of every bar by 10, its most likely effect would be that the under-age drinkers would simply become more efficient at their binge drinking. How? They'd learn to drink even faster.
Mason Williams, one-time Emmy-winning head writer for the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," once wrote: "Here's a ball. Don't bounce it." The point, of course, is that balls invite bouncing -- unlike under-age drinkers in Iowa City's bars who, apparently, do not invite bouncing. But what the bars invite, indeed demand if they are to stay in business, is the consumption of alcohol.
Now what I am about to say may surprise you, given what's preceded it: The solution to this problem may be to lower the drinking age in Iowa to 18 -- as State29 argued two years ago, State29, "How to Eliminate Underage Drinking: Lower the Drinking Age," May 13, 2005 (and see, State29, "War Age: 18, Drinking Age: 21," May 31, 2005). Indeed, I've sometimes speculated as to whether it would be effective to lower it further. I've suspected that much of the drinking, at least the binge drinking, is an expression of rebellion, the breaking out from a sense of being repressed as a youth. My sense is that in cultures where even children are permitted to drink, say, watered down wine at the family dinner table, may be less likely to produce alcohol abuse later in life than those in which alcohol is forbidden. But note that I said "may be." I'd want to see some data, some "best practices" from other campuses and cultures. All I'm saying is that I'd be open to factually supported arguments.
As a matter of common sense and administrative ease, it would seem to me reasonable to provide that no one be permitted to enter any facility that is primarily devoted to an activity in which they are, by law, prohibited from engaging. Otherwise it is, as Mason Williams put it, "Here's a ball. Don't bounce it." This would presumably apply not only to bars but to gambling casinos, or establishments devoted to smoking and the sale of tobacco products.
And if this is to be the common sense approach, why would you make distinctions based on the time of day? If the law provides that you're not to buy and consume alcohol if you're under 21, why would it ever be OK to be in an establishment the primary purpose of which is the sale and consumption of alcohol? Why is it OK before 10 p.m., but not after?
All right, I understand this is a compromise, and there are arguments as to why it is an improvement. Clearly what's now going on is unacceptable.
But it seems to me it would make a lot more sense -- administratively, legally, socially -- to either (a) lower the drinking age to 18, and let 18-year-olds and above enter the bars whenever the bars are legally open, or (b) leave it at 21 and forbid anyone under 21 from entering at any time an establishment that is primarily in the business of selling alcohol.
NASA's $300 Billion Motel 6 on the Moon
While Peter Fisher, State29 and I worry about Iowa's transfer of millions of taxpayer dollars to for-profit corporate owners and other projects of dubious merit, NASA has a proposal that makes David Oman's Iowa Rainforest Project in Pella look like a Consumer Reports' "Best Buy."
I won't address why we would ever want to put humans on Mars. That's another set of issues. (At least when it comes to space science, Iowa's James Van Allen long advocated unmanned missions as an orders of magnitude cheaper way of getting the job done.)
But accepting for the moment the desirability of spending our tax dollars in that way, the fact is that we're not yet ready to send men to Mars. So to keep NASA's employees and contractors employed a compromise of some sort is required. And the compromise? To build a base station on the Moon.
There are only a couple of problems with that idea -- aside from the fact it will cost us $26,000 a pound just to move the construction materials and astronauts' supplies there -- ultimately some $300 billion, before cost overruns: (1) Those who best know the Moon tell us that (a) there's nothing more to learn there, and (b) nothing for astronauts to do there, and (2) given the fuel requirements for landing on, and taking off again from, the Moon, there's no way that a base station on the Moon would contribute in any way to a trip to Mars.
It's just one more example of the need to (a) carefully and precisely think through what John Carver calls "ends policies" and most would call measurable goals, (b) be able to answer the question, "How would we know if we'd ever been 'successful'?" (c) understand the meaning behind the message on the poster, "None of us is as dumb as all of us," and (d) be mindful of the ways in which compromises can often result in our adopting the worst of all possible courses of action.
Wondering where the "UI Held Hostage" came from? Click here. (As of January 25 the count has run from January 21, 2006, rather than last November.)
For any given entry, links to the prior 10 will be found in the left-most column. Going directly to FromDC2Iowa.Blogspot.com will take you to the latest. Each contains links to the full text of virtually all known media stories and commentary, including mine, since the last blog entry. Together they represent what The Chronicle of Higher Education has called "one of the most comprehensive analyses of the controversy." The last time there was an entry containing the summary of prior entries' commentary (with the heading "This Blog's Focus on Regents' Presidential Search") is Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search XIII -- Last Week," December 11, 2006.
Searching: the fullest collection of basic documents related to the search is contained in Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search - Dec. 21-25," December 21, 2006 (and updated thereafter), at the bottom of that blog entry under "References." A Blog Index of entries on all subjects since June 2006 is also available. And note that if you know (or can guess at) a word to search on, the "Blogger" bar near the top of your browser has a blank, followed by "SEARCH THIS BLOG," that enables you to search all entries in this Blog since June 2006.]
Senator Obama's Heathcare Proposal Search Committee II Meeting Today; Campus Visits Plan Downtown Iowa City's Planning Meeting
Senator Obama on Healthcare
Although Senator Obama's healthcare proposals are in some ways only yesterday's news, and indeed were reported here in yesterday's blog entry, Nicholas Johnson, "UI Held Hostage Day 493 - Sen. Obama's Healthcare," May 29, 2007, it's all over today's papers. In fact, given how the national media is playing this story, it was a rather peculiar editorial decision at The Gazette that resulted in its placing its story this morning on page 3B rather than page 1A: James Q. Lynch, "Obama Unveils Health Plan," The Gazette, May 30, 2007, p. 3B.
I thought Dean Borg's report in this morning's "Morning Edition" on NPR an especially well edited, written, and delivered piece. (It should be available later this morning from http://www.npr.org.) Yesterday's blog entry linked to an early version of Kathryn Fiegen's story in this morning's Press-Citizen.
And, as you might imagine, State29 has his own take on what he characterizes as Obama's "snake oil health scare plan," State29, "Snake Oil Obama," May 30, 2007.
Clearly Senator Obama's is a "detailed plan" -- or about as detailed as you're likely to get as a campaign document from a candidate. It responds to the attacks from Senator Obama's toughest critics that he's just an inexperienced, charismatic, "empty suit" who won't reveal what he stands for. That has always been an unfair and inaccurate charge in any event, but yesterday's proposal should help answer it. It also responds to the SEIU demand that all candidates reveal their detailed healthcare proposals by August 1. (Senator Obama now joins former Senator John Edwards as one of the only two to do so.)
If you're hoping for "universal, single-payer" healthcare (as I lean toward -- and State29 leans as far away from as he possibly can without falling over) -- as is provided to the citizens of virtually every other industrialized nation -- this ain't it. But until we get meaningful public financing of campaigns, I'm not sure that's in the cards from this "best Congress that money can buy." So maybe this is a much better plan in its details than the "universal, single-payer" critics give it credit for. Maybe it's the most that a pragmatic, politically savvy healthcare policy wonk can honestly and realistically put forward.
Those who oppose any changes in the healthcare system will oppose this plan, just as they would oppose any other. But those who have a major economic stake in the present system, have disproportionate political power in shaping future changes, and are aware that some changes are simply going to have to come, may well get on board, figuring that this is the least-worst of the possible scenarios.
(1) The super rich don't need (and many don't even want) President Bush's tax cuts for the rich. That's a realistic source of funding for Senator Obama to look to for the modest public investment in healthcare he envisions -- but repealing those cuts will certainly not be a "slam dunk" for any president. (And, even if successful, we're still left with the roughly $40 trillion in unfunded entitlement obligations scheduled to become due and payable within the next 20 years or so.)
(2) His program will continue to be administered by the plethora of insurance companies we have now, which means doctors and hospitals will still be dealing with a variety of forms and reimbursement procedures, and we'll continue to pay these companies' executives healthcare administrative costs many times those of other countries. That should take at least much of the sting out of what would otherwise have been the overpowering objections of this politically influential group.
(3) The system will still be (in terms of numbers of persons covered) an employer-based healthcare system. So it's not disruptive in that regard. Why should employers support a proposal that continues to leave much of the burden on them? Because he lightens their burden. He points out that 80% of the cost of healthcare goes to benefit 20% of the people. And he proposes shifting much of that 80% to the federal government. He represents that this will result in lower premiums for the insured. Well, perhaps. But we've all seen lots of instances when that didn't occur -- as when the price of oil declines and the prices of gasoline goes up. (a) What provisions are there to insure that this element of his program won't simply further enrich insurance companies and employers, rather than reduce premiums for employees? (b) And, given the rate of inflation in healthcare costs, how many years will it be -- even under the best case scenario, with all the cost-shift benefits going to employees -- before the premiums are back up to what they are now?
(4) As for the currently uninsured, or under-insured, or only-sometimes-insured, Senator Obama proposes that the federal government "subsidize" the cost of premiums for those unable to pay market rates. But what will be the practical effect, and benefit, for, say, an unemployed, homeless, single, high school dropout, male in his mid-thirties? I mean that as a real question, not an assertion.
Look, I don't claim any more expertise on this subject (economics in general, and the economics of healthcare in particular; even though I guess I did serve for a time as co-director of the University of Iowa's Institute for Health, Behavior and Environmental Policy) than I do for any of the other subjects I write about. Moreover -- as also with those other subjects -- I quite regularly change my position once someone bothers to explain to me the errors in my thinking. So this is not, to borrow from the TV show, "my final answer." But it's what I'm thinking this morning.
Search Committee II Meeting Today; Campus Visits Plan
The quote from Professor Steve Collins, and the headline on Brian Morelli's story, make a powerful point in support of early revelation of the identity of potential UI presidential candidates. Brian Morelli, "Vetting Finalists Will Reveal Key Info,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 30, 2007, p. A3.
He quotes Steve Collins as saying, "Once your candidates have been publicly identified, the search committee can then call a wide variety of people. You also start hearing from faculty members here and at other universities that have information about the person." Collins speaks from experience. He chaired the UI search committee in 1995.
Collins continues, "I think when presidential searches around the country get into to trouble it is because they haven't spent enough time with the search and screening process."
That squares with my own experience with search committees. I recall one where a supposedly high powered (and certainly well paid) search firm was involved. We didn't have assignments, but I decided to take on a little interviewing on my own. I merely checked the Internet, and called some folks who had worked with the candidate and seemed logical people to talk with. What I came up with was extremely relevant. And yet none of the information I easily found on the Internet was presented to us by the search firm. None of the people I interviewed had ever talked to anyone at that firm or the institution doing the hiring.
(As Morelli quotes Search Committee I vice chair and UI history professor Katherine Tachau as saying, "[there are] two types of reference checks, a formal check with calls to candidates' references and an informal process of finding your own sources. The formal check is minimally useful, she said. 'It is not enough to hire on. That in combination with background checks are not enough. . . . The disadvantage of formal [checks is that those you interview] will not want to tell you anything negative about a candidate. ... No one becomes an adult without an enemy here or there. There are going to be negative comments out there [that will come out of the informal process].")
The University and Iowa City communities are made up of individuals who, together, will have hundreds of potential sources of information about any candidate Search Committee II will come up with. But they are not going to be able to gather that information in 48 hours. Some Iowa City folks will be out of town, and won't even know the person was a candidate. Some of the potential sources we know will be out of the country, or on holiday.
And many of the potential sources aren't immediately obvious. They come out of the serendipity of chance encounters and conversations.
"Where did you say this provost is now?" "X university." "You know, I think my neighbor's daughter graduated from there last year. Let me see if I can find out anything from her."
or . . .
"X university, eh? You know, I was on a panel a couple of years ago with a woman faculty member from there. I'm now remembering something she said at the time about his treatment of women. She left shortly thereafter. Let me look through my notes, see if I can find her name, and track down where she is now. We probably ought to find out more about that."
When you are able to have 10,000 people having those conversations -- instead of just the 10 or 15 on a search committee -- and you give the process months, rather than two days, to work through all the people included within their "six degrees of separation" you can avoid the problems Steve Collins identifies: "I think when presidential searches around the country get into to trouble it is because they haven't spent enough time with the search and screening process. When a search fails or presidents are appointed and they fail, I would consider that failures of the search process."
Search Committee II has done an excellent job of meeting one of its goals: keeping the UI and Iowa City communities in the dark, and giving the potential candidates a veil of confidentiality and secrecy. Whether, as a result, they will have "spent enough time with the search and screening process" will only be known after we are able to evaluate our new president's performance over the next year or two.''
Downtown Iowa City's Planning Meeting
The Iowa City Press-Citizen is not exactly noted for being hostile to local business. So when there was absolutely nothing in the paper (that I saw) on Monday or Tuesday (before the meeting) or today (following it) I should have figured out that the meeting I went to last night was not intended to be a public meeting.
The problem was, I thought I had read about it in the paper and that it was open to all. It turns out the reason I knew about it was because of an email my wife had been sent.
The meeting was led by a woman from the "Marketek" consulting firm for which the City of Iowa City is picking up the $62,500 tab as a gift to the business community. The other sponsors of the undertaking are the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Association (for the leadership of which, I should add, I have very high regard).
It was one of those meetings with which you are surely familiar at which a consultant stands in front of the room, asks questions, and then writes on a flip chart or white board, or puts little sticky dots on posters of ideas -- or, on this occasion, took little slips of sticky paper on which audience members wrote ideas and stuck them on the wall. Ultimately they write up what you've said and sell it back to you.
Well into the meeting I felt a little like I'd accidentally walked into the wrong restroom. But since it wasn't a restroom, and no one seemed startled or hostile, we stayed. It was kind of interesting in its own way, and got me to thinking about what my vision of a future downtown Iowa City might be were I to have a vision, and were it to make any difference what my vision was.
While the Press-Citizen didn't cover the event The Gazette did. Gregg Hennigan, "Housing Urged in Downtown I.C.,"The Gazette, May 29, 2007, p. 1B. He picked up on my remark that "the area was no longer the business hub of the community it was when he was a child.' At that time, downtown was the mall,' he said."
My own vision builds on that observation -- as well as much of what I heard during the evening.
For starters, we should stop referring to it as "downtown" and start thinking of it as a "neighborhood."
When I was a kid (late 1930s, 1940s), the University of Iowa notwithstanding, Iowa City had a lot in common with any one of the other 98 county seat towns in Iowa -- except for the lack of a "square." It was where the surrounding farmers came on Saturdays to trade and shop. "Downtown" was the shopping area -- somewhat like today's malls -- with grocery and hardware stores, department and clothing stores, Sears and Wards, a couple of banks and book stores, movie theaters, and an ice cream parlor. There were no parking garages built by the City, nor parking meters lining the streets (though there were still some hitching posts around town). You parked in front of the stores.
Whether or not one would like to recreate that kind of shopping center downtown today (and I'm not sure I would) there's just no way that's going to happen. There's a reason why people like shopping malls and big box stores -- not the least of which is the freedom to park, for free, without the hassle of driving round and round in a parking garage while paying by the hour for the privilege.
So I think this new neighborhood needs to be a place where people live, not where they shop. And not just a place to live for those who desire, and can afford, condos going for between $250,000 and $1 million. A diverse population of college students and working class, and a variety of nationalities and ethnic groups, not just the wealthy. A place of arts and entertainment and restaurants. A bar or two, perhaps -- but not the 40 or 50 we have now. More trees and plants. A place that's friendly to bicycles and electric golf carts and those who like to walk. A place that's fed with shuttle buses running every 5 minutes to large parking lots (not garages) on the outskirts of the neighborhood. Interesting architecture. Historic markers telling the story of prior occupants.
But, quite frankly, I don't think my vision, or that of anyone else, will make much difference. I think we will continue to have the bars, traffic and parking garages. I think what will determine what downtown Iowa City becomes are those who profit from promoting Iowa City as the under-age alcohol abusers' binge drinking capital of America. That and the profit opportunities perceived and seized upon in the projects of our wealthy developers -- at least those projects ultimately approved and funded with taxpayers' money by a subservient City Council.
But it was fun to think about for an evening anyway.
Wondering where the "UI Held Hostage" came from? Click here. (As of January 25 the count has run from January 21, 2006, rather than last November.)
For any given entry, links to the prior 10 will be found in the left-most column. Going directly to FromDC2Iowa.Blogspot.com will take you to the latest. Each contains links to the full text of virtually all known media stories and commentary, including mine, since the last blog entry. Together they represent what The Chronicle of Higher Education has called "one of the most comprehensive analyses of the controversy." The last time there was an entry containing the summary of prior entries' commentary (with the heading "This Blog's Focus on Regents' Presidential Search") is Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search XIII -- Last Week," December 11, 2006.
Searching: the fullest collection of basic documents related to the search is contained in Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search - Dec. 21-25," December 21, 2006 (and updated thereafter), at the bottom of that blog entry under "References." A Blog Index of entries on all subjects since June 2006 is also available. And note that if you know (or can guess at) a word to search on, the "Blogger" bar near the top of your browser has a blank, followed by "SEARCH THIS BLOG," that enables you to search all entries in this Blog since June 2006.]
Responding to complaints that he is long on charisma and short on specifics, Senator Barack Obama unveiled a detailed heathcare plan today at one of the nation's largest teaching hospitals: the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics (UIHC). For the advance text of his remarks, see "Obama Remarks as Prepared for Delivery,"Des Moines Register, May 29, 2007.
John Deeth has one of the most detailed and timely reports of the event at his "JDeeth" blog. And congratulations to John for the press pass he now legitimately wears as a reporter for the Center for Independent Media New Journalism Program.
For video of a local TV station's interview with the Senator, go to KCRG.TV, look for local news, and click on the "Video" link in "Obama Uses Iowa Examples for New Health Care Plan."
Presumably details of the plan will be available soon on the Obama Web site; meanwhile for details see, Mike Glover, "Obama Offers Universal Health Care Plan,"Newsday, May 29, 2007 (available from the Obama site). The Obama site has a "Creating a Healthcare System that Works" page, but it seems to be more a collection of random ideas (which is not to say they are not good random ideas) than it is an exposition of today's health insurance plan.
My photos of the event are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/NicholasIowa. (That site also has pictures of his April 12 Iowa City visit with roughly 10,000 Iowans on the Old Capitol lawn.)
It's too early, and too complicated, for me to offer any final judgments about this proposal. It doesn't look like a "universal single payer" solution to me. The vision seems to still involve an insurance-company-funded-and-administered system. But even if it's tweaking with bailing wire and chewing gum, there seem to be a lot of creative and useful tweaks. And, while any plan always needs more details worked out (otherwise it would be a 1200-page draft bill rather than a speech), however you may evaluate his details I think he's significantly responded to the critics who have called on him to produce more detailed plans.
Wondering where the "UI Held Hostage" came from? Click here. (As of January 25 the count has run from January 21, 2006, rather than last November.)
For any given entry, links to the prior 10 will be found in the left-most column. Going directly to FromDC2Iowa.Blogspot.com will take you to the latest. Each contains links to the full text of virtually all known media stories and commentary, including mine, since the last blog entry. Together they represent what The Chronicle of Higher Education has called "one of the most comprehensive analyses of the controversy." The last time there was an entry containing the summary of prior entries' commentary (with the heading "This Blog's Focus on Regents' Presidential Search") is Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search XIII -- Last Week," December 11, 2006.
Searching: the fullest collection of basic documents related to the search is contained in Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search - Dec. 21-25," December 21, 2006 (and updated thereafter), at the bottom of that blog entry under "References." A Blog Index of entries on all subjects since June 2006 is also available. And note that if you know (or can guess at) a word to search on, the "Blogger" bar near the top of your browser has a blank, followed by "SEARCH THIS BLOG," that enables you to search all entries in this Blog since June 2006.]
For my own little blog entry contribution to Memorial Day I offer a couple of links to others' creations, and a quote from a political rally yesterday as confirmation of, and a lead in to, a reprinting of a couple of pieces of mine -- one an earlier blog entry, the other an op ed column.
"Speaking of Faith." One of my favorite "Sunday church services" is the radio program, "Speaking of Faith," created and hosted by Krista Tippett. Yesterday she ran a repeat of her 2006 Memorial Day program. You can listen to it, for free, from her Web site, where it's now featured as "The Soul of War." (As the site describes it, "With Iraq veteran and chaplain Major John Morris, we explore how war challenges the human spirit and the core tenets of a life of faith.") I found it as informative as moving in my personal probing of the depths of what Memorial Day is designed to honor.
Mouths of Babes My next offering is a video sent me by Cindy Asner. It's a six-minute speech by a 13-year-old girl to a United Nations' gathering, a plea to the grownups to do a better job of governing. The current Iraq war puts all the sacrafice on the troops and their families (and the Iraqis). No rationing, no wartime excess profits tax, no war bonds, no victory gardens, no pay-as-you-go taxation. Instead of such sacrifices after 9/11, his suggestion, President Bush simply proposed, "Here are some tax breaks. Go shopping." So we did. Since we're putting the $2 trillion cost of this war on our grandchildren's credit card, we probably do owe them at least a respectful listen. Here, then, is Severn Suzuki:
When winning isn't "the only thing." Packers coach Vince Lombardi is most often credited with the line, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing" (though it may have first been uttered by UCLA coach Henry "Red" Sanders).
Upon learning the Democrats were continuing to insist they were trying to stop the war (a war they had earlier voted to start) while simultaneously voting to give President Bush an additional $100 billion to keep it going, I began a blog entry, immediately following one updating the Mary Gilchrist case, with these two paragraphs:
Whatever you may think of Biden as a presidential candidate -- and he certainly made a forceful impression -- or of his positions on the war (unlike Senators Clinton and Obama he voted for the $100 billion and, as the photos show, there were anti-war protesters at the event) -- he uttered a line that caused me to take out my Palm and make a note of it:
"There are some things worth losing an election for."
What a concept! It's one I don't think I have ever before heard coming from a win-at-any-cost elected official. It is so contrary to what I was bemoaning in that "Ending the War" blog entry: politicians willing to continue to fund an unnecessary and counterproductive "war of choice" -- with all the human and economic costs that involves in deaths, lifetime disabilities, and destruction of Iraq's basic infrastructure -- rather than risk being seen as sufficiently "weak on terrorism" that they might actually lose their next election.
And finally, . . .
"Counterproductive" War Why do I call it a counterproductive war? For the same reasons I outlined before Bush sent in the troops: Nicholas Johnson, "Ten Questions for Bush Before War,"The Daily Iowan, February 4, 2003, p. 6A. This was an analysis that is not, of course, as detailed as those now coming out that were provided to the Administration by intelligence officers at the time -- but it is fully consistent with them. It's just further evidence that figuring out what was likely to happen was not rocket science; it was even obvious to a communications law professor in Iowa. That, too, is something worth reflecting upon this Memorial Day.
Wondering where the "UI Held Hostage" came from? Click here. (As of January 25 the count has run from January 21, 2006, rather than last November.)
For any given entry, links to the prior 10 will be found in the left-most column. Going directly to FromDC2Iowa.Blogspot.com will take you to the latest. Each contains links to the full text of virtually all known media stories and commentary, including mine, since the last blog entry. Together they represent what The Chronicle of Higher Education has called "one of the most comprehensive analyses of the controversy." The last time there was an entry containing the summary of prior entries' commentary (with the heading "This Blog's Focus on Regents' Presidential Search") is Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search XIII -- Last Week," December 11, 2006.
Searching: the fullest collection of basic documents related to the search is contained in Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search - Dec. 21-25," December 21, 2006 (and updated thereafter), at the bottom of that blog entry under "References." A Blog Index of entries on all subjects since June 2006 is also available. And note that if you know (or can guess at) a word to search on, the "Blogger" bar near the top of your browser has a blank, followed by "SEARCH THIS BLOG," that enables you to search all entries in this Blog since June 2006.]
Yesterday I took a first stab at trying to get my mind around the range of categories of issues it seems to me one needs to identify before talking about "taxes." Nicholas Johnson, "Taxes: Categories of Inquiry" in "UI Held Hostage Day 490 - Search & Taxes," May 26, 2007. I didn't necessarily think it would be a blog entry of much interest to great numbers of readers; it was just something I'd been thinking about recently, and I find it helps me to think through issues if I try to write about them.
But this morning's Des Moines Register reports,
Caucus-bound Iowans have a message for the presidential candidates and the news media: Tell us more about tax policy, . . ..
The Des Moines Register's latest Iowa Poll shows many Republican and Democratic caucusgoers want more information about those issues, which are more complicated than some campaign topics and may seem less clear-cut than, say, the war in Iraq and abortion.
Although tax policy is not quite a top-tier issue in choosing a candidate, it is the leading campaign topic about which more information is sought, according to the poll of likely caucus participants that was taken May 12 to 16.
So maybe my instinct was more on the mark than I gave myself credit for yesterday. Moreover, there's another story in this morning's Register that illustrates some of the points I was making. Jeff Eckhoff, "Resources few for 'unfair' tax's foes; Battling well-funded advocates of 'Destiny,' they urge 'no' votes,"Des Moines Register, May 27, 2007, p. 1B. It involves a sales tax proposal that is (a) an unabashed effort to shift a major portion of the total tax bill (property taxes) from those who own homes to those who don't (two-thirds of the sales tax revenues will be used to reduce property taxes), (b) the tax increase is preceding any effort to think through and prioritize public funded programs (there are suggestions for how a portion of the sales tax might be spent, but little evidence that those "needs" were the driving force behind the tax increase), and (c) the very same folks who fight "tax increases" (in income, or property taxes) are the ones who are funding the campaign to increase sales taxes in three counties (I am assuming -- from 5% to 6% ) by 20% -- all points I was making yesterday.
Meanwhile, on a much less significant topic:
Nickled and Dimed
It started when I was just a kid. My attitude about corporations, I mean. Initially I was somewhere between enthusiastic and unconcerned about them. They came in threes: Chrysler, Ford and General Motors; ABC, CBS and NBC (originally with the Red and Blue networks, before the latter became ABC) -- except for the phone company, AT&T (there was only one of them). And there was only one President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, "FDR."
The FBI chased criminals, the bad guys. But corporations were at worst benign. They made stuff for us, even if we couldn't afford all of it we'd like. It seemed to last forever -- which was fortunate in an age when our parents passed along the advice they had received when our age: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." We didn't suspect we were being gauged by the prices, and all transactions were for cash or check. AT&T management took seriously its responsibility to those dependent on its stock dividends -- "widows and orphans" as they were thought to be -- and its employees and retirees. So did the "Big Three" auto manufacturers.
Taking candy from babies. Like most kids, I liked candy. A pretty hefty candy bar could be purchased for a nickle; my preference was called Butterfinger. Nickles were hard to come by, but the big candy bars seemed a fair exchange for a nickle.
And then it happened. Candy bars went from a nickle to a dime. As if that was not bad enough, at the same time the price doubled the candy bar was reduced in size. It was a dramatic moment in my life, one that shaped my future view of corporations.
The revelation made me feel like the Mavin Johnson character played by Steve Martin in the movie "The Jerk," when the owner of the weight guessing stand where Mavin worked explained to him that his failure to guess weight accurately was causing the owner an excessive loss of prizes. The Steve Martin character finally grasps the point and exclaims, "Oh, I get it. This is a profit deal."
Corporations were not my friend, I suddenly realized; they are not benign; they are operating "a profit deal;" and if they can increase profits by simultaneously giving you less while charging you more, well they'll just do it.
I was reminded of that boyhood insight tonight at the movie theater. I guess it's changed ownership. Anyhow, our standard medium soft drink and popcorn has gone up in price -- while declining in volume. (The movie incidentally, "Waitress," is well worth seeing -- even if the profit on that one goes to Rupert Murdoch.) Bear in mind, they buy this popcorn in 50-pound bags for about $20 a bag or less. They sell it at about 1/3 of a cup a time for over $4.00. I figure that's about $1200 at retail for $20 worth of popcorn. And with those profit margins they have to reduce the amount of popcorn you get?
It's not the only example.
MidAmerican Energy's membership scam. I've complained about MidAmerican's scam to the Iowa Utilities Board, but to no avail. In an age of concern about global warming, and need for energy conservation, the more you use the less you pay (per kilowatt hour, or per "therm"). Obviously, that's bad enough and as a matter of public policy really needs to be changed, regardless of how much the company's lobbyists give Iowa legislators..
But what I'm complaining about now is the charge the company imposes on you just for being a customer. That's right. Regardless of how much electricity or gas you use -- even if you use none -- you will still be charged $6.00 a month for being an electricity customer and $10.00 a month for being a gas customer. It's kind of a membership fee, or something.
Sixteen dollars doesn't sound like all that much, but over 10 years we're talking nearly $2000. For what? Just being a customer?
Obviously, those whose utility bills run into the hundreds of dollars from heating swimming pools and hot tubs, and leaving lights and appliances on in a 6000 square foot house, probably don't even know they're paying this additional $16 a month, and wouldn't miss the money if they did. But for the poor, those who are trying to cut their living expenses, turning down the thermostat and turning off the lights, it is a significant percentage of their bill.
A regulated utility needs whatever the Iowa Utility Board decides it needs. If it truly needs the revenue this $16 creates, OK, let it charge us. But why not embed that $16 in their total costs, and price the electricity and natural gas accordingly? Not incidentally, that would remove what is now a disproportionate burden on the poor.
From rags to riches. Another nickle and dime charge that's always irritated me is when an auto repair operation makes a standard separate charge for "rags" and other "shop supplies." As with the utility bill, I'm not talking about the total charge. Rags cost money. Repair bills have to cover that cost along with others. But aren't these costs just a normal part of doing business? Can't they be embedded in the hourly charge for labor?
Imagine what our grocery bills would look like if they followed the MidAmerican and auto mechanic model. Instead of paying $1.00 for a can of tuna, there would be a 35 cent charge for the tuna, a 30 cent charge for the canning, 15 cents for transportation (I'm charged an extra 20-cent transportation charge for each therm of gas), 10 cents for stocking, and 5 cents for checkout (leaving 5 cents for profit).
Hold the phone -- charges. I've never understood why there seems to be an inverse relationship between the price of the hotel room and the charge for local calls. At Motel 6 all local calls are free. When someone I'm lecturing for puts me up in a $200 or $300 a night hotel room the hotel wants to charge an additional $1.00 for every local call. What's that about? Wouldn't it be worth it to them to embed those phone bills in the nightly rate -- even raising it to $225 or $325 if necessary to cover the expense -- rather than look so grasping?
My "interest" in late fees. Fortunately, I have a sufficient bank balance to pay my bills. But I don't pay them the day they arrive, and am sometimes out of town.
Now I want to make very clear that I think companies are entitled to charge interest when bills aren't timely paid. Money has value only in relation to time. If I pay you the $100 I owe you today, a year from now (if you invest it at 10%) you will have $110. If I pay you the $100 a year from now, you will only have $100. Who should bear the loss of that $10? I should; I owed you the $100 today.
But that's not the way late fees work.
Take the City of Iowa City's water bills as one of the worst examples. Here's an actual bill for 495 cubic feet of water, due January 4, 2007, for $45.47 (incidentally, roughly twice what that much water used to cost). If, however, it is paid one week or more later the bill will be $47.70 -- $2.23 more. The City was due the money on January 4; if I don't get it to them on time they are due some interest. But $2.23 for one week!
Since there are 52 weeks in a year, that would be $115.96 in annual "interest" on a $45.47 bill -- or 255% interest! That sounds more like a usurious payday loan operation than what one would expect from a municipal government governed by a democratically elected City Council. (And, of course, if you let it go for more than a week or two the threats start sounding more like a true Mafia operation: "You think you have knee problems now; you fail to pay us and we'll show you some real knee problems.")
My solution to that one finally became my practice of simply keeping a balance on account with the City, in order not to have to pay these usurious interest rates when I'm a week or two beyond their drop dead date. I figure, so I lose some interest I would have otherwise earned on my $60 balance over the course of a year if I'd invested it. It's far less than what the City would be charging me in late fees over the course of the average year. But I shouldn't have to use this option to avoid being ripped off by my own City government.
Note to American business: You can gouge us, flim-flam us, nickle and dime us, and try to manipulate us with your high-priced advertising, but don't think we don't know it. We're paying attention. We don't like what you're doing, and we vote.
Wondering where the "UI Held Hostage" came from? Click here. (As of January 25 the count has run from January 21, 2006, rather than last November.)
For any given entry, links to the prior 10 will be found in the left-most column. Going directly to FromDC2Iowa.Blogspot.com will take you to the latest. Each contains links to the full text of virtually all known media stories and commentary, including mine, since the last blog entry. Together they represent what The Chronicle of Higher Education has called "one of the most comprehensive analyses of the controversy." The last time there was an entry containing the summary of prior entries' commentary (with the heading "This Blog's Focus on Regents' Presidential Search") is Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search XIII -- Last Week," December 11, 2006.
Searching: the fullest collection of basic documents related to the search is contained in Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search - Dec. 21-25," December 21, 2006 (and updated thereafter), at the bottom of that blog entry under "References." A Blog Index of entries on all subjects since June 2006 is also available. And note that if you know (or can guess at) a word to search on, the "Blogger" bar near the top of your browser has a blank, followed by "SEARCH THIS BLOG," that enables you to search all entries in this Blog since June 2006.]
UI Presidential Search: Campus Visits, Yes; Details? Not Yet
I have already commented about the seeming inconsistency between Search Committee II's (a) insistence on total secrecy because the best candidates would not stay in the pool if their identities would ever be revealed, but (b) the recent conversion to equal insistence that campus visits for something more than the "final four" (to be presented to the Regents) be arranged.
According to this morning's news story, excerpted below, apparently this is going to result in one or more individuals who might otherwise have been candidates now dropping out. As a matter of fairness to those individuals this is just one more reason why I have long urged that the decision regarding on-campus visits should have been declared by Search Committee II in early January rather than late May.
But forget the inconsistency, fairness, and delay. I'm just pleased the tradition of campus visits is to be honored.
Of course, the precise details as to how many will be coming, who they are, when they'll arrive, how long they'll be here, and just who in the UI and Iowa City community will be notified and involved remain to be worked out. Here are some excerpts from this morning's report in the Press-Citizen:
A University of Iowa presidential search subcommittee is looking at a series of one-day interviews as one possibility for the final round.
UI internal medicine professor Paul Rothman, who is serving on the subcommittee, described a process where the candidate would come in at night, interview throughout the following day, and then have an exit interview the next morning.
"We can have in consecutive day interviews as many candidates as this committee feels is necessary," Rothman told the full search committee during a meeting Friday.
Search committee chairman and College of Dentistry Dean David Johnsen said after the meeting that candidates' interviews could overlap, with more than one being on campus at the same time, and that it would be "nice" if they could get all the interviews done in one week.
. . . Semifinal interviews with fewer than 20 candidates were conducted May 13-14 at an undisclosed location. The committee decided last week to make final interviews public and on campus.
The committee is charged with presenting a slate of four or more finalists to the Iowa state Board of Regents, which will then select a president. That is expected to happen by July 1.
The board office is in the process of coordinating a two or three-day block of time around the weeks of June 11 or 18, at least in part for the presidential search. Johnsen said the final round isn't scheduled yet, . . ..
The committee now must re-evaluate its pool to determine which candidates are in and which are out in light of last week's decision to make interviews public. Johnsen said some top candidates are adamantly opposed to revealing their name unless they will be named president. . . .
I can make guesses as to why shorter visits are preferred by candidates (all of us have full schedules), but since this request has been presented in a way that has tied it to their demands for secrecy, that connection eludes me. (a) Whether a candidate visits here for one day or four, if they really have a need to keep their home institution in the dark about their willingness to leave, it seems to me their cover is blown either way. (b) There is also the suggestion that shortening the time between the day they set foot on the UI campus and the day the Regents make their final decision somehow helps minimize the serious harm to their reputation resulting from the public knowledge that they are willing to be considered for the UI presidency. I don't understand that one either. Why is their reputation less harmed if they are kept in suspense for two weeks than if the process takes three or four weeks?
[The Iowa Open Meetings Law provides for exceptions when meetings, otherwise required to be open, may be closed. One of those exceptions describes a situation in which closure may be permitted "when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to [an] individual's reputation." Iowa Code Sec. 21.5.1.i (2007). The position of some applicants, supported by Search Committee II, has been until now that for it to be known that an educational administrator was being considered as a possible president of the University of Iowa would, of course, cause "needless and irreparable injury" to that candidate's reputation -- thus the Committee members' willingness to hold secret sessions at undisclosed locations, risking their violation of the open meetings law, rather than disclose where their interviews were being held.]
And why is it that Iowa City tends to hold elections when the students aren't in town, and these on-campus interviews are going to be held when no one is in town? Coincidence? Perhaps.
But I'll put those questions aside as well, as I look forward to this whole mess being finally put behind us sometime during the next month or so.
# # #
Taxes: Categories of Inquiry
[A number of interuptions throughout the day caused this entry to be finished much later than I'd anticipated initially; on the other hand, I don't suffer the illusion that anyone was breathlessly waiting for it to be concluded.]
I don't know why I was thinking about tax policy yesterday. I'd long since paid my income taxes. And I certainly claim no expertise on that subject.
Maybe it was because the Iowa City City Council is thinking about increasing the sales tax.
People who want to increase sales taxes always talk about increasing them "a penny" or by "one percent." That may be good public relations and politics, but it's not good math. A few months ago the sales tax in Iowa City was 5% on top of the sales price of an item or service. Now it's 6%. If the City Council raises it "another penny" at it's 7% -- all in a matter of months. An increase from 5% to 7% is a forty percent increase in the sales tax, not a "one percent increase."
Can you imagine the howl that would go up -- from, above all, those who go around promoting sales tax increases -- if our income taxes, or property taxes, were to go up by 40%? The "get the government off my back" crowd would be taking classes in how to make and hold picket signs and walk in protest marches.
But I'm getting ahead of myself -- and with regard to the very matter I want to think through: what are the categories of subjects we need to think about when thinking about taxes, or proposing reforms? In other words, I want to dig around a bit "deep in the heart of taxes."
Anyhow, I had abandoned the idea of making my brain work that hard on a Saturday morning when I opened the Press-Citizen this morning and found a column by Peter Fisher. Fisher is a Ph.D. economist, professor in the University of Iowa's Department of Urban and Regional Planning, and research director of the Iowa Policy Project (a non-partisan Iowa "think tank" that provides what is often the only analyses worth reading about a given Iowa public policy question). In short, he actually knows what he's talking about on this subject. In fact, he's just finished a study documenting that, when it comes to taxes, Iowa businesses aren't as abused (compared with other states) as their legislative friends claim they are. See, Peter S. Fisher, "Falling Below Average: Why Iowa Taxes Are Competitive" (February 2007).
Here's what he had to say this morning:
Owners of shopping malls, office towers and apartment buildings in Iowa argue that they are paying too much in property taxes. They appear to have gotten a sympathetic ear among Iowa legislators and Gov. Chet Culver.
But despite much fanfare surrounding the issue early in the last legislative session, the Iowa General Assembly was unable to produce a bill dealing with the problem. The reason is quite simple: If commercial taxes are reduced, someone else has to pick up the tab, and no one wants to take the blame for doing that.
The overall system
Is there really a problem here? Property taxes are not driving business out of Iowa, as some claim. Property taxes are just part of the overall system of state and local taxes. Businesses that occupy commercial real estate are also taxed under the corporate or personal income tax. Iowa's personal income tax level is about average, and the corporate income tax in Iowa is well below average. Furthermore, researchers have examined the overall level of business taxation (including property taxes) and found that Iowa is about average among the 50 states.
State-local taxes are a small share of the cost of doing business at any rate. Research has shown, in fact, that tax levels have little to do with how a state's economy grows. Furthermore, commercial property is the prime beneficiary of tax abatements and subsidies through tax increment financing (TIF). Much new commercial investment pays far less than the nominal property tax rate because of these incentives.
This is not to say that there are no problems with the property tax in Iowa. The rollback system that reduces residential and agricultural assessments was designed to prevent a large shift in property taxes to residential property, and it has succeeded admirably.
But it has also produced a situation in which commercial owners pay on all of the market value of their property, while homeowners now pay on less than half the value. As a result, an apartment building will pay over twice the property taxes that would be due on an identical building that has units owned as individual condos, because the condos are considered residential property. In a few years, residential assessment rates could fall to 33 percent, at which point the apartments will pay three times the rate on condos.
This tax disparity creates a powerful incentive to convert apartments to condos, or to build condos instead of apartments, which creates a scarcity of rental property and keeps rents high.
Other issues of fairness
There are other issues of fairness. Older Main Street businesses are paying commercial property taxes without the relief afforded many newer businesses through TIF incentives and abatements. This is not a level playing field. And cities are using TIF ever more aggressively, shifting the cost of city services to rural and state taxpayers and, in many cases, wasting tax dollars on incentives that do nothing for real economic development.
The residential rollback system needs to be reformed. Local governments cannot keep pace with inflation and the needs of a growing population when the rollback formula continues to shrink a large chunk of the tax base. Decisions about building apartments vs. condos should be based on market conditions, not a peculiarity of the tax system. Solving these problems requires that we freeze the residential rollback and then begin moving at least part way back to a system based on market value.
Any substantial reductions in taxes on commercial property should also address the inequities and waste inherent in Iowa's system of tax increment financing. There should be no commercial property tax relief without some substantial TIF reform.
Property tax reform will not be easy; someone will have to pay for it. TIF reform could, in fact, provide some of the funds. And while failure to enact drastic reductions in commercial property taxes will not lead to economic ruin, the rollback system cannot continue in its present form forever. Let's hope that the next session of the Legislature begins to tackle the long-term problems with Iowa's property tax system.
In addition to being an integrated and thoughtful essay in its own right, the piece offers examples of some of my categories.
1. "Taxes" is too vague. In order to have a constructive -- and non-combative -- exploration of tax policy we have to be more precise than "taxes." For example, Fisher writes about "commercial property taxes" and "residential property taxes." Politicians who say things like "read my lips, no new taxes" and "I like cutting taxes" are contributing to neither our understanding of the problems nor their resolution.
2. It's not "taxes," it's "programs." Even when we use an adequately precise language of taxation, we're missing the point. "Taxes" are simply another form of currency -- like cash, checks and credit cards -- for buying stuff. What determines both our quality of civic life, and the quantity of the various taxes we pay, are the programs we buy with those taxes. To say that we "can't afford" the universal health care enjoyed by every other industrialized nation on earth, but we can afford to pass on to our grandchildren up to $2 trillion in debt for the unnecessary and counter-productive war in Iraq, is an example of the decisions regarding programmatic priorities that we ought to be addressing -- rather than "taxes."
This is not to say that "money is no object." At some point we need to tally up the total cost of all the tax-funded programs we would like to have. And when we do that we will want to do a kind of triage with them, based on benefit-cost analyses and other techniques -- which to create or expand, which to hold steady with tweaking, and which to cut back or eliminate -- based on their outputs, what we're getting for our money.
The point is, we need to begin with a focus on programs -- the budgeted items in our city, county and state budgets -- rather than begin with a focus on taxes.
3. Which taxes? There are a great variety of "taxes," and all need to be taken into account -- more, presumably, than those of which I am aware. Federal and state income taxes. Commercial and residential property taxes. Sales taxes -- sometimes, as with our "SILO" tax, earmarked for limited purposes (in that case, schools). Estate taxes. Social Security (FICA) taxes -- a very significant, and often unmentioned, tax paid by the working poor. Gasoline taxes. Without regard to what the total tax take may be, there are public policy reasons for advocating one mechanism for gathering tax revenues rather than another.
4. Breaks, abatements and corporate welfare. "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." Trying to figure out what happens to the money in a tax code is like trying to follow the moves of a very skillful "shell-and-pea game" player. Fisher talks about TIFs.
I'm not advocating a "flat tax" (there's a lot of devilment in those details). Nor am I (at the moment) arguing that any of these transfers of money from the taxpayers to for-profit businesses should be eliminated. Let them (for now) keep receiving the money. What I do think would be a big help in getting our minds around these numbers would be if the Legislature would pull the corporate welfare provisions out of the tax code and put them elsewhere. It's politically more acceptable to give a corporation a "tax break" than an outright cash gift; I understand that. But when it's hidden in the tax code it makes it very difficult for us to figure out just how big the gift is.
And obviously, both need to be taken into account when assessing an individual's, or a business's, "tax burden." It makes little sense to look at what a business pays in property taxes, for example, while ignoring the money it's getting from the state in the form of tax abatements, out-and-out cash grants (such as from Vision Iowa and comparable taxpayer-funded accounts), or taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects primarily benefiting the corporation.
Consider the TIFs that Fisher talks about. What I'm suggesting would not affect the bottom line of the TIF beneficiaries one dime. They would simply pay the same property tax that any other business in their position would pay, and then the governmental unit (that, by not collecting the tax ,is now, in effect, slipping them the money under the table and calling it a TIF) would write a check for that amount that all could see.
In terms of accountability, to take in the money and then pay it back out again is very different from never collecting it in the first place.
5. The Mix, Beneficiaries and User Fees What's the most appropriate mix of tax sources (e.g., income, property and sales taxes)? By what criteria? What programs so substantially benefit the entire population that all should contribute (e.g., K-12 public education, police and fire protection)? When is it possible to identify a segment of the population that benefits disproportionately from a program, and charge only them on the basis of the quantity of that benefit (e.g., the use of gasoline taxes to pay for roads; "the more you drive the more you pay")?
6. "From each according to his ability"? Should the wealthy pay not only more, say, income taxes (because, by definition, they have more income), but a higher percentage of their income in taxes as well (a "progressive income tax")? Admittedly, the wealthy (and their lawyers and lobbyists) have always been able to work the system in ways that enable them occasionally to pay even less taxes than their employees. But at least the ostensible rate of taxation was in the past much more progressive than it is today. This is essentially a moral and ethical -- rather than an economic or accounting -- issue. But it comes up during campaigns to raise the retrogressive sales tax -- especially when proponents come out and unabashedly admit they want to use the increased sales tax revenues to reduce property taxes (essentially shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor).
7. Unintended consequences. Fisher talks about the shift from rental property to condominiums that has resulted from the fact that commercial property taxes (on, in this instance, apartments) are higher than on residential property taxes (on, in this instance, condos). Presumably (at least one would hope) this significant reduction in available rental properties has come about as an unintended consequence rather than by design. I once had an elected public official explain to me that the reason she favored increasing commercial properties in her city (rather than "affordable housing") was because -- like an official of any regular for-profit corporation -- she was out to maximize the City's bottom line (i.e., the property tax revenue it could collect). Presumably, from this perspective one would seek to come as close as possible to a system of taxation that would be neutral in its impact on human behavior.
8. Taxation as regulation. On the other hand, the so called "sin taxes" (e.g., cigarette and alcohol taxes) are designed, at least in part, to discourage use of tobacco, and excessive use of alcohol, as a means of improving public health. One could also argue that these taxes should be pegged at a level that roughly approximates the added public costs of providing health care, police protection, and other programs necessitated by use of tobacco and alcohol. This would tend to satisfy the libertarian argument that people should be free to harm themselves as long as they are not harming others -- while alleviating the harm to others of having to pay for the external costs imposed on the public from the users' unhealthy behavior.
There are, undoubtedly, other "categories" or ways of approaching issues of taxation policy, but these are at least illustrations of the kinds of ideas occurring to me at the moment.
Wondering where the "UI Held Hostage" came from? Click here. (As of January 25 the count has run from January 21, 2006, rather than last November.)
For any given entry, links to the prior 10 will be found in the left-most column. Going directly to FromDC2Iowa.Blogspot.com will take you to the latest. Each contains links to the full text of virtually all known media stories and commentary, including mine, since the last blog entry. Together they represent what The Chronicle of Higher Education has called "one of the most comprehensive analyses of the controversy." The last time there was an entry containing the summary of prior entries' commentary (with the heading "This Blog's Focus on Regents' Presidential Search") is Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search XIII -- Last Week," December 11, 2006.
Searching: the fullest collection of basic documents related to the search is contained in Nicholas Johnson, "UI President Search - Dec. 21-25," December 21, 2006 (and updated thereafter), at the bottom of that blog entry under "References." A Blog Index of entries on all subjects since June 2006 is also available. And note that if you know (or can guess at) a word to search on, the "Blogger" bar near the top of your browser has a blank, followed by "SEARCH THIS BLOG," that enables you to search all entries in this Blog since June 2006.]
