What’s He Smoking?

I concluded yesterday’s blog by asking what Ballard is smoking. That reference to smoking rather naturally led some Facebook friends to raise the issue of the smoking ban–the one Ballard supported when he was a candidate, and refuses to support now that he’s Mayor, arguable pissing off people on all sides of the debate.

I’m pretty libertarian; I don’t think the government has the right to prohibit people from smoking either tobacco or marijuana. But I do support the smoking ban (and I’d support a ban on smoking marijuana in public places), for several reasons.

1) The health of workers (not customers). No worker should have to choose between health and a paycheck, and let’s not pretend that those working in bars can just walk away and get another job. Not in this economy.  Mayor Ballard says those who work in restaurants and bars are “transients.” I know some people who’ve worked in the same establishments for 20+ years, but even if these workers do move around, is Ballard saying the life and health of “transients” aren’t a concern?

2) Believe it or not, there is a sound economic development argument for smoking bans. Indiana and Indianapolis are falling behind the rest of the nation, the rest of the world and major cities everywhere – convention cities, NFL cities, NBA cities, etc. Among our immediate neighbors, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are all smokefree. We’re the ashtray of the Midwest, and if we don’t clean it up, we’re going to lose convention business–not to mention some long-term businesses that don’t want to pay higher “sick-Hoosier” health insurance costs. Which brings me to

3)  A smoking ban will lower health-care costs. What my friend Bruce Hetrick calls “the three-legged stool”–smoke-free workplace laws, FDA regulation of tobacco companies, and higher cigarette taxes–is the most effective way to encourage people to quit smoking. Getting people to quit lowers health-care costs for individuals and those who fund their health care.

By itself, this last argument would not be sufficient–there are lots of things we might do to lower healthcare costs that the government cannot require. But given the overwhelming evidence of the harm done by passive smoke and the competitive disadvantage caused by our failure to act, it’s worth noting that doing the right thing has its benefits.

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Parking Meter Delusions

According to media reports, in last night’s debate between Melina Kennedy (no relation!) and Greg Ballard, the Mayor strongly defended his record. He cited crime reduction (a claim that can be considered true if you count only certain crimes, and ignore those annoying statistics about aggravated assaults and the like) and the privatization of parking meters.

Excuse me? Let’s deconstruct that. We are supposed to re-elect Ballard in gratitude for his decision to give away control of our parking infrastructure and some 60% of the fees we would otherwise earn for the next fifty years?

The ability to control meters may seem inconsequential, but it isn’t. Decisions about parking are a significant element in all sorts of development decisions; the ability to “bag” meters without penalty during downtown construction is a cost-control measure important to developers and others. It has been estimated that the city’s deal–which requires compensating ACS when more than a certain number of meters are bagged–added over a million dollars to the construction costs of the Cultural Trail.

When many of us protested the decision to contract away the lion’s share of parking revenues that would otherwise flow to the city, we were told that we needed the “expertise” of ACS–that the city couldn’t finance and manage its meters without the help of a sophisticated mega-corporation. (Evidently, the disastrous experiences of cities like Chicago that had entered into similar deals was considered irrelevant by Mayor Leadership.)

The bottom line, according to the Ballard Administration, was that it was necessary to trade a lot of city control and money for competent, experienced management.I thought that was a bad deal, but I assumed we would at least get the competent management. Evidently, I was naive.

Yesterday, in my Media and Policy class, a student raised the issue of how poorly local media had covered the administration’s privatization of the water company and parking meters. That led another student to complain that she had received a ticket despite having paid the fee–and was helpless to prove her payment since the meters don’t dispense receipts.

Her complaint opened a floodgate. Out of the 23 students in class, no fewer than 8 of them reported similar problems. Several had attempted to complain–complaints that, as one put it, were “blown off.” One student who had paid with a credit card was told the only way she could get a refund was to bring in her Visa bill. Another reported that her credit card was charged twice; when she tried to get the improper extra charge removed, the response was “how do we know you didn’t park twice?”

So, Mayor Ballard, let me understand this: I am supposed to vote to re-elect you, not despite the fact that you gave control of our parking and millions of our dollars to a company that is doing a crappy job, but because you did so?

Whatever it is you’re smoking, I’d like some.

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Class Warfare

As the Wall Street sit-ins spread, we are hearing more accusations of “class warfare.” Those accusations come from both ends of the political spectrum: the wealthy–particularly those whose wealth comes from the financial sector–accuse the protestors of enmity aimed at the “haves,” and the protestors and their supporters respond that corporate “fat cats” started the conflict by engaging in unethical practices motivated by greed that harmed “the other 99%.”

I actually don’t think what we are seeing is class warfare. I doubt if many of the protestors really have animus toward all those who are better off. They are just really, really angry at the increasingly successful efforts of bankers and others to shield themselves from the consequences of their own (mis)behaviors.

Nor do I think that corporate bigwigs are motivated by a desire to harm the (dwindling) middle class or poor. I doubt they even think about what their “Masters of the Universe” game-playing does to other people. (This lack of awareness–let alone concern–is in fact one of their most distasteful characteristics.)

Rather than dismissing these demonstrations by mislabeling them, I think they are general expressions of discontent with a political system that increasingly favors the well-positioned and well-resourced over other Americans.

The “other 99%” don’t hate rich people. They hate a system that increasingly takes from the poor to give to the rich.

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The Shadow Government

A fair amount of my academic research has addressed issues of government privatization–or more accurately, contracting out. (Privatization, as Morton Marcus frequently notes, is what Margaret Thatcher did in England: selling off government enterprises to private sector owners. In the US, privatization means providing government services through for-profit or nonprofit contractors–a very different thing.)

My research has convinced me of three things: 1) while contracting may be appropriate under some circumstances, it is not the panacea that so many politicians seem to think. Sometimes it makes sense, often not. 2) the cost savings that are touted by privatization advocates are largely mythical, the result of omitting the cost to government of contract management–or the even greater costs of failing to manage those contracts. And 3) far from shrinking the size of government, as proponents contend, contracting actually expands both the size and scope of government, while at the same time making that expansion less visible and government less accountable.

Two recent studies confirm those latter conclusions.

A few weeks ago, the Government Accounting Office released the results of its investigation of contracting costs. It found that contracting was often more costly than providing the same services in-house. And just a few days ago, during a debate over a proposed federal contracting rule, the number of of federal contract workers–people working full-time for the federal government who are contract workers rather than federal employees–was estimated at approximately 7.1 million. That’s in contrast to the full-time civilian federal workforce of 2.1 million.  The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 43% of all employees who do the government’s work are employed by contractors. (It further estimates that 20% of that 43% are paid “poverty wages.”)

It isn’t only the federal government, of course. When you add the “shadow” employees working under contract for state and local governments, estimates of the number of contracted government employees run as high as 17 million. It’s impossible to know for certain, because there is very little data available that would allow governments to monitor these workers, and considerable resistance from the business community to the Obama administration’s recent efforts to collect and analyze such information.

It’s very difficult to hold government accountable when you can’t see government at work. Contract workers need to come out of the shadows.

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A Question for the Godly

The New York Times recently reported on a town clerk in upstate New York who was refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite passage of the recent New York law recognizing such unions. She cited evangelical Christianity as a bar against performing her official duties.

“For me to participate in the same-sex marriage application process I don’t feel is right,” Rose Marie Belforti told The Times. “God doesn’t want me to do this, so I can’t do what God doesn’t want me to do, just like I can’t steal, or any of the other things that God doesn’t want me to do.”

I’m impressed by Ms. Belforti’s godliness. But since she seems to have an intimate relationship with God, and seems to know what He/She wants with such precision, I’d love to ask her a couple of questions. For example, how does God feel about her issuing licenses to divorced folks? People who’ve previously been convicted of crimes God disapproves of?

But most of all, I’d like to know how God feels about her continuing to take a government paycheck while refusing to perform the duties she’s being paid for. Isn’t that like stealing?

Ms. Belforti is absolutely entitled to her religious beliefs; however, she is not entitled to work for the government. If she can’t do her job–for whatever reason–she should be replaced by someone who can.

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