Most Americans would be surprised to learn that they are, in fact, in the top one percent of income — when the entire world is considered. It is economic freedom in America that has been responsible for this high standard of living. But America’s ranking among the countries in economic freedom has declined, and may fall further.

View the 60-second video at Economic Freedom in 60 Seconds, or click below.

This year Kansas made a leap forward in reducing income tax rates. The next step for Kansas is to reduce its spending, both to match the reduced revenue that is forecast, but also to improve the efficiency of Kansas government and leave more money in the hands of the private sector. Specifically, Kansas needs to improve its budgeting process and streamline state government.

In Kansas, like in many states, the budgeting process starts with the previous year’s spending. That is then adjusted for factors like inflation, caseloads, and policy changes that necessitate more (or rarely, less) spending. The result is that debates are waged over the increment in spending. Rarely is the base looked at to see if the spending is efficient, effective, or needed.

There are several approaches Kansas could take to improve on this process. One is zero-based budgeting. In this approach, an agency’s budget set to zero. Then, every spending proposal must have a rational or justification for it to be added to the budget.

Zero-based budgeting can be successful, but, according to the recent paper Zero-base Budgeting in the States from National Conference of State Legislatures, it requires a large commitment from the parties involved. It also can take a lot of time and resources. Kansas could start the process with just a few agencies, and each agency could go through the process periodically, say once every five or six years. Some states have abandoned the zero-based budgeting process.

In its State Budget Reform Toolkit, American Legislative Exchange Council advocates a system called priority-based budgeting. This process starts with deciding on the core functions of state government. That, of course, can be a battle, as people have different ideas on what government should be doing.

ALEC reports that “In 2003, Washington state actually implemented priority based budgeting to close a budget deficit of $2.4 billion without raising taxes.”

The spending cuts Kansas needs to balance the budget are not large. Kansas Policy Institute has calculated that a one-time cut of 6.5 percent next year would be sufficient to bring the budget to balance.

The problem that Kansas will face in reducing state spending and streamlining its government is that there are those who are opposed. Streamlining often means eliminating programs that aren’t needed, aren’t performing as expected, or are very costly. These programs, however, all have constituencies that benefit from them — the concept of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs that public choice economics has taught us. These constituencies will be sure to let everyone know how harmful it will be to them if a program is scaled back or ended.

Streamlining also means that there may be fewer state employees. Some will say that the loss of state employees means a loss for the economy, as the state workers will no longer be receiving a paycheck and spending it. This reasoning, however, ignores the source of state workers’ pay: the taxpayers of Kansas. With fewer state employees, taxpayers will have more money to spend or invest. The problem is that it is easier to focus on the employees that may lose their jobs, as they are highly visible and they have vocal advocacy groups to watch out for them. This is an example of the seen and unseen, as explained by Henry Hazlitt.

An upcoming vote in the Kansas Legislature, possibly today, will let Kansans know who is truly in favor of economic freedom, limited government, and free market capitalism — and who favors crony capitalism instead.

The bill is Senate Substitute for HB2382: AN ACT concerning economic development; concerning the STAR bonds financing act; relating to the provisions regarding STAR bond projects; extending the sunset date. Under current law, the Kansas STAR bonds program will expire on July 1, 2012. This bill extends the program’s life for five years.

The STAR bonds program allows increases in sales tax revenue to be directed to private interests rather than feeding the state treasury. The mechanism is that local governments like cities can sell bonds and give the proceeds to developers. Then, increments in sales tax revenues are used to make bond payments.

In economic impact and effect, the STAR bonds program is a government spending program. Except: Like many spending programs implemented through the tax system, legislative appropriations are not required. No one has to vote to spend on a specific project. Can you imagine the legislature voting to grant $50 million over a period of years to a proposed development in northeast Wichita? That doesn’t seem likely. Few members would want to withstand the scrutiny of having voted in favor of such blatant cronyism.

But under stealth-like tax expenditure programs like STAR bonds, that’s exactly what happens — except for the legislative voting part.

Government spending programs like STAR bonds are sold to legislators as jobs programs. Development, it is said, will not happen unless project developers receive incentives through these spending programs. Since no legislator wants to be seen voting against jobs, many are susceptible to the seductive promise of jobs.

But often these same legislators are in favor of tax cuts to create jobs. This is the case in the Kansas House, where many Republican members are in favor of reducing the state’s income tax as a way of creating economic growth and jobs. On this issue, these members are correct.

But many of the same members voted earlier this year for a previous version of the STAR bonds extension bill. (See In Kansas, STAR bonds vote uplifted cronyism over capitalism.) These members voted in favor of a tax expenditure program. These two positions — voting for tax cuts, but voting for targeted spending through the tax system — cannot be reconciled. If government taxing and spending is bad, it is especially bad when part of tax expenditure programs like STAR bonds. And there’s plenty of evidence that government spending and taxation is a drag on the economy.

It’s not just legislators that are holding these incongruous views. Secretary of Commerce Pat George promoted the STAR bonds program to legislators. This seems to be contrary to the spirit of tax reform plans Kansas Governor Sam Brownback promoted earlier in the session. At that time, he proposed ending spending programs implemented through the tax system. Historic preservation tax credits was a particular program that he wanted to end.

The danger of false, or “crony” capitalism

Last year at the time Brownback and a new, purportedly more conservative Kansas House took office, I wondered whether Kansas would pursue a business-friendly or capitalism-friendly path: “Plans for the Kansas Republican Party to make Kansas government more friendly to business run the risk of creating false, or crony capitalism instead of an environment of genuine growth opportunity for all business.” I quoted John Stossel:

The word “capitalism” is used in two contradictory ways. Sometimes it’s used to mean the free market, or laissez faire. Other times it’s used to mean today’s government-guided economy. Logically, “capitalism” can’t be both things. Either markets are free or government controls them. We can’t have it both ways.

The truth is that we don’t have a free market — government regulation and management are pervasive — so it’s misleading to say that “capitalism” caused today’s problems. The free market is innocent.

But it’s fair to say that crony capitalism created the economic mess.

But wait, you may say: Isn’t business and free-market capitalism the same thing? Not at all. Here’s what Milton Friedman had to say: “There’s a widespread belief and common conception that somehow or other business and economics are the same, that those people who are in favor of a free market are also in favor of everything that big business does. And those of us who have defended a free market have, over a long period of time, become accustomed to being called apologists for big business. But nothing could be farther from the truth. There’s a real distinction between being in favor of free markets and being in favor of whatever business does.” (emphasis added.)

Friedman also knew very well of the discipline of free markets and how business will try to avoid it: “The great virtue of free enterprise is that it forces existing businesses to meet the test of the market continuously, to produce products that meet consumer demands at lowest cost, or else be driven from the market. It is a profit-and-loss system. Naturally, existing businesses generally prefer to keep out competitors in other ways. That is why the business community, despite its rhetoric, has so often been a major enemy of truly free enterprise.”

The danger of Kansas government having a friendly relationship with Kansas business is that the state will circumvent free markets and promote crony, or false, capitalism in Kansas. It’s something that we need to be on the watch for. The vote on the STAR bonds project will let us know how our state is proceeding. If the upcoming vote goes as did the earlier votes on this matter, the verdict is clear: Kansas legislators — including many purported fiscal conservatives — prefer crony capitalism over free enterprise and genuine capitalism.

The problem

Government bureaucrats and politicians promote programs like STAR bonds as targeted investment in our economic future. They believe that they have the ability to select which companies are worthy of public investment, and which are not. It’s a form of centralized planning by the state that shapes the future direction of the Kansas economy.

Arnold Kling has written about the ability of government experts to decide what investments should be made with public funds. There’s a problem with knowledge and power:

As Hayek pointed out, knowledge that is important in the economy is dispersed. Consumers understand their own wants and business managers understand their technological opportunities and constraints to a greater degree than they can articulate and to a far greater degree than experts can understand and absorb.

When knowledge is dispersed but power is concentrated, I call this the knowledge-power discrepancy. Such discrepancies can arise in large firms, where CEOs can fail to appreciate the significance of what is known by some of their subordinates. … With government experts, the knowledge-power discrepancy is particularly acute.

Despite this knowledge problem, Kansas legislators are willing to give power to bureaucrats in the Department of Commerce (along with local government officials and bureaucrats) who feel they have the necessary knowledge to direct the investment of public funds. One thing is for sure: the state and its bureaucrats have the power to make these investments. They just don’t have — they can’t have — the knowledge as to whether these are wise.

What to do

The STAR bonds program is an “active investor” approach to economic development. Its government spending on business leads to taxes that others have to pay. That has a harmful effect on other business, both existing and those that wish to form.

Professor Art Hall of the Center for Applied Economics at the Kansas University School of Business is critical of this approach to economic development. In his paper Embracing Dynamism: The Next Phase in Kansas Economic Development Policy, Hall quotes Alan Peters and Peter Fisher: “The most fundamental problem is that many public officials appear to believe that they can influence the course of their state and local economies through incentives and subsidies to a degree far beyond anything supported by even the most optimistic evidence. We need to begin by lowering expectations about their ability to micro-manage economic growth and making the case for a more sensible view of the role of government — providing foundations for growth through sound fiscal practices, quality public infrastructure, and good education systems — and then letting the economy take care of itself.”

In the same paper, Hall writes this regarding “benchmarking” — the bidding wars for large employers that Kansas and many of its cities employ: “Kansas can break out of the benchmarking race by developing a strategy built on embracing dynamism. Such a strategy, far from losing opportunity, can distinguish itself by building unique capabilities that create a different mix of value that can enhance the probability of long-term economic success through enhanced opportunity. Embracing dynamism can change how Kansas plays the game.”

In making his argument, Hall cites research on the futility of chasing large employers as an economic development strategy: “Large-employer businesses have no measurable net economic effect on local economies when properly measured. To quote from the most comprehensive study: ‘The primary finding is that the location of a large firm has no measurable net economic effect on local economies when the entire dynamic of location effects is taken into account. Thus, the siting of large firms that are the target of aggressive recruitment efforts fails to create positive private sector gains and likely does not generate significant public revenue gains either.’”

There is also substantial research that is it young firms — distinguished from small business in general — that are the engine of economic growth for the future. We can’t detect which of the young firms will blossom into major success — or even small-scale successes. The only way to nurture them is through economic policies that all companies can benefit from. Reducing tax rates is an example of such a policy. Government spending on specific companies through programs like STAR bonds is an example of precisely the wrong policy.

We need to move away from economic development based on this active investor approach. We need to advocate for policies at all levels of government that lead to sustainable economic development. We need political leaders who have the wisdom to realize this, and the courage to act appropriately. Which is to not act in most circumstances. But politicians have an irresistible urge to be seen doing something, even though most of what is done is harmful.

Watchdog reporter at Pachyderm. This Friday (May 18th) the Wichita Pachyderm Club features Paul Soutar, Reporter for Kansas Watchdog, speaking on “The evolution of journalism and how the new media empowers citizens.” The public is welcome and encouraged to attend Wichita Pachyderm meetings. For more information click on Wichita Pachyderm Club. … The club has an exceptional lineup of future speakers as follows: On May 25th: Ron Estes, State Treasurer of Kansas, speaking on “A report from the Kansas Treasurer.” … On June 1st: Gary Oborny, Chairman/CEO Occidental Management and Real Estate Development, CCIM Designated member of the Storm Water Advisory Board to the City of Wichita, speaking on “What is the economic impact of EPA mandates on storm water quality in Wichita?”

Kansas senators vote for cronyism. Veronique de Rugy explains the harm of the Export-Import Bank of the United States in Why Would Anyone be Against the Export-Import Bank? “First, the Ex-Im Bank is nothing more than corporate welfare. This is an agency that is in the business of subsidizing private companies with taxpayer dollars. … An excellent paper by Cato Institute’s trade analyst Sallie James exposes just how unseemly, inefficient, and irrelevant the Export-Import Bank is. As James explains, the Bank not only picks winners and losers by guaranteeing the loans of private companies, but it also introduces unfair competition for all the U.S. firms that do not benefit from such special treatment.” The bill is H.R. 2072: Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act of 2012. Both Kansas senators Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts voted for this bill. So did U.S. Representative Kevin Yoder of the Kansas third district. But Representatives Tim Huelskamp, Lynn Jenkins, and Mike Pompeo voted against it.

Koch = big oil? Politico: “The Koch brothers have an unlikely ally in the war of words with their liberal adversaries: the nation’s journalistic fact-checkers. Both The Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog and the nonpartisan site FactCheck.org have dinged critics of David and Charles Koch in recent weeks for referring to the billionaire brothers as Big Oil. Why? Because Koch Industries’ business interests extend well beyond the company’s involvement in petroleum refining and other oil-based operations. And while no corporate midget, the company isn’t anywhere near as big as true oil giants like ExxonMobil. ‘So even if all of Koch Industries’ revenues came from its refining business — which they do not — they would still be a fraction of the revenues of the companies that actually represent ‘Big Oil,” the FactCheck.org critique read.” More at Fact-checkers and Kochs’ ‘Big Oil’. Another example of how facts don’t get in the way of Koch critics. Or try For New York Times, facts about Kochs don’t matter.

Economic freedom. Why does the political left criticize Charles and David Koch? In the following video from last year, Koch Industries CEO and board chairman Charles G. Koch explains the principles of economic freedom, something that he and David Koch have worked to advance for many years. These principles, according to Koch, include private property rights, impartial rule of law, free trade, sound money which reduces boom and bust cycles, and a small and limited government. These principles are good for everyone, I should add, including those currently at the bottom of the economic ladder.

We aren’t Greece … yet. “Once again, Greece finds the international community questioning its ability to pay its debts. Default and an exit from the Euro Zone (or countries which share the Euro as a common currency) threatens on the horizon. Here in the U.S., we face high debts and have a lowered credit rating due to Washington’s inability to agree on deficit reduction. Just how alike are our two nations?” An infographic from Bankrupting America explains.

Bankrupting America

Some who oppose cutting income tax rates in Kansas are using slight of hand to make the case that Kansas can’t afford to cut taxes.

An example comes from the Kansas Economic Progress Council. Last week this group said that the tax cut bill passed by the House of Representatives would create a budget gap of $2,475,100,000 by fiscal year 2018. KEPC then compared that to what the state general fund might be at that time — perhaps around $6,500,000,000 — and marveled at how large the deficit would be to one year’s general fund spending.

This analysis was then picked up by groups like Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) and perhaps a few gullible newspaper editorial writers, and people in Kansas become concerned.

Projections surrounding the tax plan have been shifting. But the problem with the KEPC story, and where the slight of hand comes in, is that the deficit figure cited is the cumulative deficit over a period of four (or maybe five) years. But the general fund spending this cumulative number is compared to is for a single year.

There’s no valid basis for making this comparison. In the vernacular of the teachers union, it’s comparing apples to oranges.

It is simply a scare tactic used by special interest groups that benefit from government spending. It’s not truthful.

Where’s the multiplier?

KEPC also formulated an illustration as to how many jobs the state would need to create to overcome this purported budget gap. This might be a reasonable thing to do, as the stated purpose of the tax reduction plan is to create an environment in Kansas where job creation accelerates.

In its analysis, KEPC didn’t make use of the multiplier. This is a standard argument made by those who like KEPC want a government spending program started or expanded, or perhaps a sales tax increase. Each job created by the government spending, it is said, spawns spending that creates other jobs.

So why didn’t KEPC use the multiplier in this analysis? Is this a technique used only when it produces the results that special interest spending groups like KEPC desire?

On top of that, KEPC makes the same time series mistake as before, where the accumulated deficit over a period of years is treated as though it needs to be solved in one year.

Reporting on USD 259, the Wichita public school district teacher contract negotiations provides another example of how schools are not being truthful regarding school spending.

According to Wichita Eagle reporting, the district’s attorney used “repeated cuts in state funding” as a reason why the district can’t raise teacher salaries. He also referred to “the state and the cuts that have been made to school finance” and also said “I think it’s the state legislature and all the cuts that have occurred that have put us in this position.”

These statements contain a grain of truth, but in a wider context, they are not truthful. It’s not just the Wichita school district attorney that makes these claims of large cuts to school funding. So do the Kansas school spending establishment and their allies such as the editorial boards of most Kansas newspapers.

The grain of truth is base state aid per pupil, which is the starting point for the Kansas school finance formula. It has been cut, as shown in this chart that the school spending establishment uses.

Kansas school spending, as presented by the Wichita public school district.

Focusing on base state aid misses the larger picture. As an example, for the 2010-2011 school year, base state aid was $3,937. Yet the Wichita school district received $7,092 per pupil from the state, 80 percent more than base aid. Focusing only on base state aid per pupil also misses the federal and local sources of revenue to schools. For this year the Wichita district received $2,132 per pupil from the federal government, and $3,855 per pupil from local taxpayers, for a total of $13,069 per pupil. The same figure for the previous year was $12,526.

As it turns out, when you consider all sources of funding, the Wichita school district has been able to spend more money each year for many years, despite the claims of cuts. What cuts have been made to base state aid per pupil have been more than compensated for by weighted state spending, federal aid, and local aid, as shown in the following chart.

Wichita school spending, as reported by Kansas State Department of Education.

Why do school spending supporters focus only on base state aid? Its decline provides the grain of truth for their larger and false argument about school spending. As explained in Kansas school spending: the deception this grain of truth enables school spending advocates like Mark Desetti (Director of Legislative and Political Advocacy at Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union) to be accurate and deceptive, all at the same time.

We expect this behavior from union officials. Their job — as advocates for a special interest group — is to direct more spending to schools, without regard to need or cost to taxpayers.

Newspaper editorial writers, however, ought to be held to a higher standard. But: A recent Lawrence Journal-World editorial contained “In the last four years, per-pupil state funding for public schools has declined by about 14 percent, from $4,400 per student to $3,780.” And writing in the Wichita Eagle, Rhonda Holman complained of “several years of cuts totaling $653 per pupil.” (Reason to be wary, December 16 Wichita Eagle) Actual facts do not support these claims.

Similarly, we ought to expect more truth from school districts and school officials regarding school finance. Then, we can ask for truth on Kansas school test scores.

In Kansas, lower income tax rates are needed to ensure that Kansas has a bright economic future. Failing to reform income tax rates will mean that Kansas will continue to under-perform other states.

Why should we care about reducing tax rates? We must remember that taxation is not a voluntary activity. Although it is not fashionable to say this in public, ultimately taxes are collected by coercion or its threat. While those who are (supposedly) enlightened will argue that taxes are like dues paid to belong to a club, or maybe the price we pay to have a civilized society, these arguments are easily dispatched. What, for example, if I don’t want to belong the the “club”? Big government — supported by high taxes — destroys civil society, if by that we mean a society based on liberty and voluntary participation and cooperation. The choice is stark, as explained in the mission statement of the Cato Institute: “In civil society individuals make choices about their lives while in a political society someone else makes or attempts to greatly influence those choices.”

We also need to recognized the relative productivity of the public and private sectors of the economy. We find over and over that the private sector is more efficient at delivering goods and services than is the government, or public, sector. There are a number of reasons for this.

First, government spending is filtered through the lens of special interest groups that fight to obtain every dollar they can. This “mining for dollars” is the prime reason why so much effort is spent lobbying government, both at the national, state, and local level. Almost every spending program exhibits the qualities of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. There is a group, usually relatively small, that will benefit mightily from a spending program. The costs, however, are spread across the entire state, so the cost to each person is small. Sometimes this argument is made explicit, as when advocates for Kansas arts spending said the cost was only $0.29 per person, per year.

This leads to an imbalance of interest and effort. The small group receiving the concentrated benefit of the spending is highly motivated to press its case and seek victory, while the average citizen sees the 29 cents — if he sees anything at all — and comes to the rational conclusion that it’s easier to pay than fight.

Repeat this scenario many times, however, and soon the cost to the individual is substantial. This cost, remember, is to pay for spending that benefits special interest groups, and often provides little benefit to society at large. See the video Public Choice: Why Politicians Don’t Cut Spending for more. In the video, Benjamin Powell concludes: “This is the logic of politics, and this is why we end up with more spending than the average voter wants.”

Second: Government doesn’t have the same profit motive that the private sector has. While most people want government to do some things that the private sector might not do on its own, such as caring for the sick and disabled, there a difference between government paying for a service and government providing the service. In government, spending programs are usually looked on as jobs programs. Politicians crow over how many jobs the program creates, and the more jobs, the better. In the private sector, however, different motivations come into play. There, efficiency is valued and rewarded by profit.

Some do not recognize the beneficial effect of the profit motive, using arguments that say private for-profit companies can’t provide adequate care for disabled people. They argue that these companies will short-change patients on their care so that they can earn more profit. This, however, misunderstands how profits are earned, which is by providing a good or service which is valued by the customer, and doing that efficiently enough that something is left over after costs are paid. In competitive markets — and we must see that these exist — customers can switch to other suppliers if they don’t get what they want or contracted for. This benefits customers, which in this case, is the state in purchasing services for its citizens.

There’s also no reason to think that government bureaucrats are immune from the profit motive. Bureaucrats benefit through expansion of the budgets and power spheres. Most seek to expand both.

Results from other states

While we can’t perform controlled experiments regarding states and income tax rates, we can look at what has happened in the states. There, the results are striking. Analysis in the current edition of Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index shows that low taxes are conducive to economic growth: “When it comes to growing gross state product (GSP), the [states with no personal income tax] have, on average, outperformed those states with the highest rates by 39.2 percent over the past decade. They have also outperformed the U.S. average by 25.6 percent. Additionally, not even one state in the high tax rate group performed as well as the average no personal income tax state.”

Besides this, low tax rates are good for government budgets, too, finds the authors of Rich States, Poor States: “You may be surprised to learn that the growth premium of the no personal income tax states also benefits the public treasury. The average growth of all state and local tax revenues over the past decade was 51 percent. Interestingly enough, the no personal income tax states saw their state revenue grow 81.7 percent faster than that of the nine highest personal income tax states. Clearly, private sector growth matters a great deal for government revenues. Leaders of states with the highest rates ought to reconsider: If the rates don’t result in more money (relative to the no personal income tax states), then why are they so high?”

Kansas compared to other states

In the Rich States, Poor States analysis, Kansas does not perform well. Rich States, Poor States evaluates state economies two ways. The “Economic Outlook Ranking” is a forecast looking forward. It is based on factors that are under control of the states. The “Economic Performance Ranking” is a backward-looking rating that measures state performance, again using variables under control of each state.

For Economic Performance Ranking, Kansas is ranked 39 among the states, near the bottom in terms of positive performance. In the 2010 edition, Kansas was ranked 40th, and in 2010, 34th. Kansas is not making progress in this ranking of state performance.

In the forward-looking Economic Outlook Ranking, Kansas ranks 26th. Again, Kansas is not making progress, compared to other states. In annual rankings since 2008 Kansas has been ranked 29, 24, 25, 27, and now 26.

Recently the Tax Foundation released a report that examines the tax costs on business in the states and in selected cities in each state. The news for Kansas is worse than merely bad, as our state couldn’t have performed much worse: Kansas ranks 47th among the states for tax costs for mature business firms, and 48th for new firms. The report is Location Matters: A Comparative Analysis of State Tax Costs on Business.

The most startling fact, and one that should be a wake-up call to anyone who cares about the future of Kansas, is the uncovering by Kansas Policy Institute that not long ago, Kansas was the only state to have a loss in private sector jobs over a year-long period.

All the spending on schools, highways, and other government programs that are supposed to spur our economy to greatness lead to this: last place. The only state with private-sector job loss. We couldn’t have done worse.

Kansas will do better by leaving more of its citizens’ resources in the private sector, under their own control. Cutting taxes — and then government spending — is the way to generate prosperity in Kansas for all of its citizens.

“As it turns out, if we tax corporations, we’re not just taxing the rich. We’re taxing everybody.” That’s the conclusion of Steven Horwitz in the following video. He explains that a tax on corporations is not the equivalent of a tax on the wealthy; instead individual people will pay these taxes, regardless of wealth. Working people bear the costs of the corporate income tax.

In summarizing the findings of economists, Horwitz says: “So yes, corporations are indeed comprised of people in the sense that it is individuals who ultimately bear the burden of increased corporate taxation. There is an ongoing debate about who bears that burden and how much. But anyone who thinks that taxing corporations means taxing the rich is fooling themselves. It’s us, actual people, who bear the burden of corporate taxation, not the abstract entity called the corporation.”

As Kansas prepares to reduce its income tax rates, there are those such as Wichita Eagle editorial board who urge caution before proceeding with reducing taxes. Others will claim that government taxation and spending are the driving forces behind growing the Kansas economy. An example is the motto of the Kansas Economic Progress Council, which is “… because a tax cut never filled a pothole, put out a fire or taught a child to read.”

Two research papers illustrate the need to reduce taxes in Kansas, finding that high taxes are associated with reduced income and low economic growth. Research such as this rebuts the presumption of government spending advocates that reducing taxes will kill jobs in Kansas.

One paper is The Robust Relationship between Taxes and U.S. State Income Growth by W. Robert Reed, published in the National Tax Journal in March 2008. The abstract to this paper states:

I estimate the relationship between taxes and income growth using data from 1970 – 1999 and the forty-eight continental U.S. states. I find that taxes used to fund general expenditures are associated with significant, negative effects on income growth. This finding is generally robust across alternative variable specifications, alternative estimation procedures, alternative ways of dividing the data into “five-year” periods, and across different time periods and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) regions, though state-specific estimates vary widely. I also provide an explanation for why previous research has had difficulty identifying this “robust” relationship. (emphasis added)

In his introduction, Reed writes that previous studies had found: “To the extent a consensus exists, it is that taxes used to fund transfer payments have small, negative effects on economic activity.” His paper found a stronger relationship.

Reed issues a caution on the use of his conclusions: “It needs to be emphasized that my claim for robustness should be understood as applying only within the context of U.S. state income growth. It should not be interpreted as being more widely applicable to other contexts, such as employment growth, manufacturing activity, plant locations, etc., or to the relationship between taxes and income growth outside the U.S.”

This illustrates one of the ways we focus on the wrong measure of growth. Politicians focus on jobs. But to business, jobs are a cost. One of the better goals to seek, as Art Hall specifies in his paper Embracing Dynamism: The Next Phase in Kansas Economic Development Policy, is income growth, along with population density and population migration, productivity growth, capital investment, gross business starts and expansions, and customer service and throughput measures of state economic development agencies. Hall writes: “If Kansas performs well in the measures provided, it will also perform well in terms of job count.”

Another example of research finding a negative impact of taxation is State Taxes and Economic Growth by Barry W. Poulson and Jules Gordon Kaplan, published in the Winter 2008 Cato Journal. In the introduction to the paper, the authors write: “The analysis reveals a significant negative impact of higher marginal tax rates on economic growth. The analysis underscores the importance of controlling for regressivity, convergence, and regional influences in isolating the effect of taxes on economic growth in the states.” (emphasis added)

In its conclusion, the paper states:

The analysis reveals that higher marginal tax rates had a negative impact on economic growth in the states. The analysis also shows that greater regressivity had a positive impact on economic growth. States that held the rate of growth in revenue below the rate of growth in income achieved higher rates of economic growth.

The analysis underscores the negative impact of income taxes on economic growth in the states. Most states introduced an income tax and came to rely on the income tax as the primary source of revenue. Jurisdictions that imposed an income tax to generate a given level of revenue experienced lower rates of economic growth relative to jurisdictions that relied on alternative taxes to generate the same revenue. (emphasis added)

When thinking about the difference between government action and action taken by free people trading voluntarily in markets, we find that many myths abound. Tom G. Palmer, who is Vice President for International Programs at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, General Director of the Atlas Global Initiative for Free Trade, Peace, and Prosperity, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, and Director of Cato University, has written an important paper that confronts these myths about markets. The twentieth myth — Markets Can Solve All Problems without Government at All — and Palmer’s refutation is below. The complete series of myths and responses is at Twenty Myths about Markets.

Palmer is editor of the recent book The Morality of Capitalism. He will be in Overland Park and Wichita in May speaking on the moral case for capitalism. For more information and to register for these events see The Morality of Capitalism. An eleven minute podcast of Palmer speaking on this topic is at The Morality of Capitalism.

Myth: Markets Can Solve All Problems without Government at All

Myth: Government is so incompetent that it can’t do anything right. The main lesson of the market is that we should always weaken government, because government is simply the opposite of the market. The less government you have, the more market you have.

Tom G. Palmer: Those who recognize the benefits of markets should recognize that in much of the world, perhaps all of it, the basic problem is not only that governments do too much, but also that they do too little. The former category — things that governments should not do, includes A) activities that should not be done by anyone at all, such as “ethnic cleansing,” theft of land, and creating special legal privileges for elites, and B) things that could and should be done through the voluntary interaction of firms and entrepreneurs in markets, such as manufacturing automobiles, publishing newspapers, and running restaurants. Governments should stop doing all of those things. But as they cease doing what they ought not to do, governments should start doing some of the things that would in fact increase justice and create the foundation for voluntary interaction to solve problems. In fact, there is a relation between the two: governments that spend their resources running car factories or publishing newspapers, or worse — confiscating property and creating legal privileges for the few — both undercut and diminish their abilities to provide truly valuable services that governments are able to provide. For example, governments in poorer nations rarely do a good job of providing clear legal title, not to mention securing property from takings. Legal systems are frequently inefficient, cumbersome, and lack the independence and impartiality that are necessary to facilitate voluntary transactions.

For markets to be able to provide the framework for social coordination, property and contract must be well established in law. Governments that fail to provide those public benefits keep markets from emerging. Government can serve the public interest by exercising authority to create law and justice, not by being weak, but by being legally authoritative and at the same time limited in its powers. A weak government is not the same as a limited government. Weak unlimited governments can be tremendously dangerous because they do things that ought not to be done but do not have the authority to enforce the rules of just conduct and provide the security of life, liberty, and estate that are necessary for freedom and free market exchanges. Free markets are not the same as the sheer absence of government. Not all anarchies are attractive, after all. Free markets are made possible by efficiently administered limited governments that clearly define and impartially enforce rules of just conduct.

It is also important to remember that there are plenty of problems that have to be solved through conscious action; it’s not enough to insist that impersonal market processes will solve all problems. In fact, as Nobel Prize winning economist Ronald Coase explained in his important work on the market and the firm, firms typically rely on conscious planning and coordination to achieve common aims, rather than on constant recourse to market exchanges, because going to the market is costly. Each contract arranged is costly to negotiate, for example, so long-term contracts are used instead to reduce contracting costs. In firms, long-term contracts substitute for spot-exchanges and include labor relations involving teamwork and conscious direction, rather than constant bidding for particular services. Firms — little islands of teamwork and planning — are able to succeed because they navigate within a wider ocean of spontaneous order through market exchanges. (The great error of the socialists was to try to manage the entire economy like one great firm; it would be a similar error not to recognize the limited role of conscious direction and teamwork within the wider spontaneous order of the market.) To the extent that markets can provide the framework of creation and enforcement of rules of just conduct, advocates of free markets should promote just that. Private security firms are often better than state police (and less violent, if for no other reason than that the cost of violence are not easily shifted to third parties, except by the state); voluntary arbitration often works far better than state courts. But recognizing that entails recognizing the central role of rules in creating markets and, thus, favoring efficient and just rules, whether provided by government or by the market, rather than merely being “anti-government.”

Finally, it should be remembered that property and market exchange may not, by themselves, solve all problems. For example, if global warming is in fact a threat to the entire planet’s ability to sustain life, or if the ozone layer is being degraded in ways that will be harmful to life, coordinated government solutions may be the best, or perhaps the only, way to avoid disaster. Naturally, that does not mean that markets would play no role at all; markets for rights to carbon dioxide emissions might, for example, help to smooth adjustments, but those markets would first have to be established by coordination among governments. What is important to remember, however, is that deciding that a tool is not adequate and appropriate for all conceivable problems does not entail that it is not adequate and appropriate for any problems. The tool many work very well for some or even most problems. Property and markets solve many problems and should be relied on to do so; if they do not solve all, that is no reason to reject them for problems for which they do offer efficient and just solutions.

Free markets may not solve every conceivable problem humanity might face, but they can and do produce freedom and prosperity, and there is something to be said for that.