Dash of Calabash

Wind farms around the world are found to be increasingly killing birds, many endangered species. This article notes that wind turbines in Norway are threatening the slow comeback of the white tailed eagle. The concern is now bringing challenges to a planned wind farm in Scotland.

Stuart Housden, the director of RSPB Scotland, said: “The news from Norway is of great concern to us. If white-tailed eagles have died because of wind-turbine collisions, there are major implications for our own eagle populations here in Scotland. We are campaigning hard against the proposed 234- turbine wind farm on north Lewis partly because of the great danger it poses to Scotland’s eagles.”

Hawaii, and especially the planners of the Kahuku wind farm, should take heed of these developments. Will the small number of turbines that can be built in the area be worth the expenses for the legal challenges that are sure to come?

An interview in Budget & Tax news from the Heartland Institute covers the issue of government unions and their influence in politics. This paragraph states the problem about as succinctly can be put:

As far as I’m concerned labor unions, particularly public-sector unions, are the driving force behind the growth of government and, therefore, taxes. The reason is obvious. So long as approximately 37 percent of all public employees are union dues payers, the unions have a strong motive to grow the size of government.

But that isn’t the only reason, there is a political one as well:

But the reason is really more complex than that. Most union officials, unlike most union members, are very liberal. Liberals tend to see government as the solution to problems rather than the cause of them. For a liberal union official–put aside the question of increased membership and dues for the moment–there is something inherently good about big government.

Many aspects of the long standing government-union collaborationa are covered in this interview as well as some of the history of how it came about.

A recent article in Budget & Tax News from the Heartland Institute points up how government workers often get better wages and benefits that the public they are supposed to serve.

For 50 years, public-sector unions, health care lobbyists, and social services advocacy groups have doggedly been amassing power in state capitols and city halls, using their influence to inflate pay and benefits for their workers and to boost government spending. The bill for that influence is now coming due, and it is overwhelming state and local budgets.

Hawaii’s economy is still doing well so everyone is eyeing the budget “surplus” for their favorite interests but this report notes how the increased spending eventually catches up with state and local governments and overwhelms them forcing yet more tax increases. Thus this state is poised to make the same mistakes that other states did during the 1990s boom, which Hawaii didn’t participate in.

The tidal wave of local government spending that produced this crisis built up as tax revenues poured into state and municipal coffers during the 1990s boom. State tax collections rose by 86 percent, or about $250 billion, from 1990 through 2001, while local property tax collections soared by $90 billion, or 60 percent, during a period when inflation increased by a mere 30 percent.

Rather than give surpluses back to taxpayers, government went on a spending spree, lavishing opulent pensions on employees and expanding politically popular health and education programs.

The next quote states Hawaii’s position precisely since this state some of the highest union membership in the nation.

Unions and social services groups were perfectly positioned to funnel this flood of surplus tax revenues into their pockets rather than back to the taxpayers. Starting with virtually no representation in the public sector 50 years ago, unions have relentlessly organized workers, so that in some states as many as 60 to 70 percent of public employees now are members.

The article then goes on to explain how government employee medical retirement and pension benefits are surpassing those in the private sector, as has been well evident of late.

Real all of this excellent article here..

A recently released study by Americans for Tax Reform shows how local spending decisions are what really drives increases in property taxes.

Across the country, taxpayers are opening their mailboxes to find substantial increases in their evergrowing property tax bills. Thanks to the strong housing market and an insatiable desire of local officials to spend taxpayer money, the rising property tax burden is the most pressing issue facing state and local governments. Although more than 40 states have property tax limits of some kind, ineffective policies and multiplying loopholes have contributed to the rising pressure on taxpayers.

Over the past twenty five years, local property tax collections have exceeded population and inflation growth by 55 percent, or roughly 2 percent per year. These continual increases in local property taxes above the rate of population and inflation are squeezing homeowners and reducing economic growth.

This latter is clearly the case in Hawaii. The study compares two state programs, one that reduced property taxes and one that increased them. It then gives examples on how other states reduced property taxes. That is not to say the same solutions would work in Hawaii but it is clear that something needs to be done.

Full report here. (pdf)

Walter E. Williams is writing about federal government incompetence but the principle he explores applies to all levels of government. The private sector, because of competition, is inherently more efficient than government will ever be. The following quote concerns specifically the response to the hurricanes last summer. Comparing government’s response to the private sector:

Hillsdale College professor of economics Robert Murphy points to some of FEMA’s stupidity in response to Hurricane Katrina, which includes “delaying firefighters two days in Atlanta hotels to receive sexual-harassment training and watch videos on the history of FEMA while people were dying in New Orleans.”

By contrast, private firms like Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Home Depot had trucks on the road immediately after the hurricane. Stores even gave away items like chain saws and boots for rescue workers, sheets and clothes for shelters, and water and ice for the public. Wal-Mart was so efficient that there was talk among some Louisiana officials of letting Wal-Mart take over FEMA’s job and a suggestion that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott run FEMA. Freeman editor Sheldon Richman says the latter suggestion misses a very important point. Wal-Mart was effective because it was not a government agency.

The current debate raging in this state about the repair and maintenance backlog in the education department is a local example. Who really doubts that the DOE is wasting money? Anyone who thinks that government is using the public’s money in the best way possible just doesn’t understand the nature of government.

Whole article here.

This is almost too silly to imagine.

HONOLULU - On an idyllic spit of lush landscape at the
University of Hawaii sprout the massive heart-shaped leaves of hundreds of taro plants.

Native Hawaiians hold the plant sacred in cultural lore, which is why many are now demanding that the university relinquish three patents claiming ownership to taro varieties developed by one of its scientists.

. . . But tough ethical questions are being raised about allowing private companies to patent and profit from Mother Nature: Who owns the living thing that yields the revenue? Are companies simply pirating local knowledge and resources from indigenous people?

What tough ethical questions? Developing drugs from plants that cure people of cancer is a “tough ethical question?”

Many locals accuse the University of Hawaii, which in 2003 began sending Diversa exotic microbes unearthed by researchers in volcanoes and elsewhere in the state, of giving away things that belong to the Hawaiian people and cannot be sold.

What belongs to the “Hawaiian people” that cannot be sold? The DNA that the Hawaiian people had no idea existed 150 years ago? What group “owns” anything?

The following quote at the end of the article will set the stage for those who want to read the rest of the article:

The Hawaiian people, it is believed, came from a second brother, making the taro plant part of their common ancestry.

“Our genealogy arises from the taro,” said Hawaii activist Mililani Trask. “The taro patents are a desecration.”

Where was this genealogy detailed in the Akaka bill?

Link.

In his own words, more on his 20/20 report on the state of education and the necessity for school choice.

Link.

These graphics pretty much say it all.

How many more taxes do we have to pay?

Source: Congressional Research Service, Tax Foundation.

Total taxes graphic and article. (pdf)

Article on federal taxes.

The 2006 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey (pdf) ranks Honolulu as the 3rd least affordable housing market in the world, behind 1st ranked Los Angeles and 2nd place San Diego. The report gives a number of reasons, such as low interest rates but a major cause is listed as excessive regulation:

In summary, the unprecedented housing affordability crisis could represent a threat to prosperous economies. Research indicates that the crisis may be, in large part, a consequence (negative externality) of the excessive land use regulation that has been adopted in many markets. Severe land use regulations have generally been adopted without any understanding of their ultimate impacts on housing affordability. Indeed, these effects have often not been considered at all. Where housing affordability concerns have been raised, the typical response has been denial rather than informed and objective analysis.

Research is increasingly identifying insufficient supply as the main driver of excessive house price escalation. In particular, the supply has been seriously dampened by government land use regulatory policies that have the effect of rationing land. This raises the price of land and, in consequence, there are markedly higher housing prices where such policies have been implemented.

The land restrictions go by the monikers of “smart growth” or “urban consolidation” and they make large swaths of land off-limits to housing construction or impose excessive costs17 or costly delays.

Harvard University published research by Glaeser and Gyourko found that there was little difference in construction costs between US markets and characterized land use controls as playing the “dominant role” in the housing costs differences.

The excessively high prices in highly regulated markets also raise the cost of low-income “affordable housing.” As land prices are driven higher, the public cost of providing housing assistance to low income households also increases.

A must read for anyone who wishes to understand why housing prices are so high in Honolulu and why they will probably remain so despite the state government’s “affordable housing” push. The underlying causes aren’t likely to be changed anytime soon.

I was looking at your website and saw the visions of legislators. The one submitted by Gary L. Hooser caught my eye. It said

“My ‘vision’ can be summed up in three concepts:

Peace
Social Justice
Sustainability”

Here are my
observations—–

Freedom
User pays
Level playing field

At a bit more length, it seems to me that those who profess to care
most about social justice are the same ones who want to impose
policies that make housing unaffordable and tax the poor to give rich
people highly subisidized train rides.

And it seems that those who profess to care about sustainability are
the most willing to use unsustainable government subsidies to achieve
that supposed goal.

Randal

Thoreau Institute
P. O. Box 1590
Bandon, Oregon 97411
http://ti.org/