I remarked the other day that Amy Oliver and Michael Sandoval of our Energy Policy Center have been doing some fantastic work lately. Not sure why energy policy doesn’t get as much play as other policy areas but I certainly think energy is sexy. Their latest article scrutinizes the Obama administration’s love affair with China. The relationship is not simply a trade friendly “I give you something, you give me something” type of deal. It has more to do with China’s rare earth minerals and the ability of said minerals to produce “renewable” energy – which Amy and Michael once again prove is anything but green (and often times deadly).

We just released a new Issue Paper that tackles the perennial question: how much are we taxed here in Colorado? Many on the Left presume it’s not enough. When our researcher Anthony Gonzalez really dug into it and looked at the whole picture (state AND local taxation), Colorado it turns out sits right in the middle of the nation at 26th. Take a look at our first Issue Paper of 2012, How Colorado’s Tax Burdens Rank Nationally.

In his latest blog post, our Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson shares his thoughts on the recently signed into law National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Many believe the NDAA codifies the Executive Branch’s ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial. What does Rob think? Check it out here.

Keep your eyes on this developing story: Democratic lawmakers are putting RTD’s toes to the fire on building out the Northwest corridor. RTD made a promise many years ago and the folks up in the Longmont area have been paying for a rail system that has yet to be delivered. How long can RTD hold out? How long will the Northwest corridor take it? Time will tell…

Finally, there is a really cool economics fundamentals class being held at our building this Saturday the 11th. I encourage all of you to take a look at the details here. For those still not on Facebook, here is some information:

Are you a liberty activist who loves free markets, capitalism and limited government – but have a difficult time describing its myriad benefits and merits when talking with others?

Then this is the educational training course for you!

Liberty on the Rocks is looking for leaders in the liberty movement (current or future) who are interested in obtaining insights into the basic fundamental principles of free market economics by attending a half-day educational course in Denver. **Tickets to attend are $10**

On Saturday, February 11th from 1:30-6:30pm, Liberty on the Rocks will present an exclusive hands-on, discussion and activity-driven economics session. During this half-day course, attendees will learn and/or better understand:

-The role economics plays in the advancement of liberty

-How to make the case for freedom from an economic and philosophical perspective

-How prices work in a market place

-Different ways of looking at public policy from an economic perspective

-The essential arguments for why socialism can’t work

RSVP today by purchasing tickets at: http://denver.libertyontherocks.org/economic-freedom-session/

Email Amanda Muell for even more info.

Have no fear Hollywood! Your favorite Colorado legislator Tom Massey is back again with another movie-making corporate welfare bill. You may remember him from a gem of a bill last session that would have implemented a 10 cent movie ticket tax at your local theater in order to subsidize movie production in Colorado. Thankfully it failed, even after the tax was re-written to be a “voluntary” donation. The Reason Foundation’s Harris Kenny wrote an op-ed for us outlining the bad economics regarding movie production subsidies. Yes, subsidies for Hollywood might attract some movie-making in Colorado. However, that is not the full story. To see the big picture, you have to ask, “at what cost?” Harris shows that the cost of handouts are much larger than any benefit movie production might bring.

I learned this morning in the Chieftan that despite his lack of success in subsidizing Hollywood movie producers at rates higher than New Mexico and Utah for the past 7 years, he is determined to shake some more pennies from Colorado taxpayers before he gives his final farewell. Details of what Rep. Massey is cooking up are uncertain, but we do know that he’s been working with Governor Hickenlooper on his master plan. With Hick’s blessing, there’s no telling what corporate welfare scheme they’ll be able to sell to the public.

You may have heard about our Free People, Free Markets class, you may have even taken the course already. If not, I want to encourage you to learn more about something that is certain to enrich your life. Over the years, Free People, Free Markets: Principles of Liberty has taught hundreds of interested liberty lovers the fundamentals of economics, philosophy, and history regarding our country’s founding and economic foundations. If ever there was a time to deepen your love affair with liberty and freedom, THIS is it.

The class meets for 5 consecutive Saturdays, from 9am to noon, starting with the last Saturday in January, the 28th at Colorado Christian University’s business school, room 103 (8787 Alameda Ave, Lakewood). For more info, please call Andy Anderson at 303-829-9435.

Need more reasons why you should enrich your love of liberty? How about this:

You have a strong love of freedom. It’s a natural part of being human. But too few of today’s adults were taught the fundamentals of a free society. We have a wonderful seminar to offer you. It pulls together the basic principles of liberty and a free market, showing you that these cohesive fundamentals allow society to work well, and to honor the individual. The course material springs from the great thinkers and achievers who shaped America. It is designed for business and community leaders and the general public as well as for college students.

The course makes the moral and philosophic case for free-market capitalism. One of the most important concepts of Western Civilization is the acquisition of property as an unalienable right. The course develops the relationship between economic liberty and political liberty. Participants learn the principles behind wealth-creation. They are introduced to the philosophy of the Austrian School of Economics and its connection to the founding ideas of the American experiment. Participants are awakened to their heritage of economic liberty. It will be more than worth your time.

Classes held on five consecutive Saturdays. The course is designed for business and community leaders, college students, and the general public. If desired, you may obtain three college credits through the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs by paying the usual college per-credit fee.

Come if you love liberty. Come if you love collectivism, but need to understand the libertarian position. Come if you want to receive an inexpensive, thorough, and energetic exposure to the founding principles of economic and political liberty.

For more information about the course itself contact Penn Pfiffner at 303-233-7731 or constecon@hotmail.com. For more information about registering and any other matters contact CRBC at 303-829-9435 or principlescourse@smallbizgop.

Well, it’s that time again. Time for us at the Independence Institute to say, “I told you so.” It’s quite easy to say I told you so when you have FasTracks around. Anyone can do it really. All you have to do is this: read RTD’s cost estimates and completion dates and… not believe a word of it. They continue to underestimate costs and completion dates for every single one of their rail lines. And why shouldn’t they? It’s the best strategy for selling an inefficient, bloated public works project to voters. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet caught on that “X amount of dollars” really means “X times 5 amount of money.” And “completed by year 20XX” really means “completed by year 20XX + 30 years.”

It’s been the same story, full of lies and deceptions since the 1970’s. Check out this short video we made chronicling RTD’s lies over the years.

The question remains: will voters be fooled a third time? We know RTD will ask for more money. That’s for sure. We just don’t know when they’ll come groveling back to voters to fund the same project yet again.

How many times are you willing to pay for the same project?

As you may have noticed, we at the Independence Institute don’t like tax increases of any kind. We especially don’t like them during rough economic times. (Side note: Have you heard the good news yet?! Colorado’s unemployment rate is DOWN to 8.3%! Hooray?) The evidence is pretty clear. If Proposition 103 passes and we get a massive tax for the next five years, all of our jobs will be in jeopardy. Just like these falling dominoes over here. Aside from just losing around 11,000 jobs if we tax ourselves into oblivion, there’s also the education side to the argument. Prop 103’s proponents say the tax hike is “for the kids.” (What tax hike isn’t really?) But nowhere does it say that the money raised from Prop 103 must go to education. Remember all that Ref C money and where it went? Yeah, me neither.

Thankfully, Charlie Leonard of the Aspen Times wrote on the education side of Prop 103. He cited two important points: one, that the money isn’t guaranteed to go to education to begin with. And secondly, even if all the money went to education, that doesn’t mean OUTCOMES – the stuff that matters – would improve. Charlie writes,

According to the nonpartisan Independence Institute, “Americans have increased spending on K-12 education by 50 percent over the past 30 years, and doubled spending over the past 40 years. Educational outcomes, as defined by test scores and international comparisons, have barely budged. Some school districts such as those in Washington, D.C., and New York City spend the highest amounts per pupil and have worse outcomes than Colorado’s test scores. The neighboring state of Utah spends $2,700 per pupil less than Colorado and enjoys better outcomes.”

And there you have folks. There is very little connection between money spent and educational outcomes. It’s not as if the more you spend, the more our kids learn. Not even close. So why tax ourselves into despair for the kids nothing?

Yesterday the Independence Institute held a press conference here in Golden to illustrate the job destroying results if Proposition 103, Sen. Rollie Heath’s tax hike, passes this November. Like I say in the video below, we wondered, “how in the world can we show the domino effect of job loss if Prop 103 passes? People’s jobs will fall like dominoes! How do we show this???” Well, after much thought and some whiskey, we finally came up with the perfect illustration… LET’S KNOCK THOUSANDS OF DOMINOES DOWN! So I got on the phone and called up 5-time domino world record holder Robert Speca to see if he wanted to come to Colorado to knock some dominoes down. Thankfully, he said yes and within a day, he was out near our offices in Golden setting up thousands upon thousands of dominoes to represent all of the jobs that will be lost if Prop 103 passes.

Yesterday at 2pm, we held the press conference and I was the lucky guy who got to push the first domino over. It was REALLY fun! In total, Robert the “Domino Wizard” set up 5,500 dominoes, with each domino representing TWO jobs lost due to this tax increase. Take a look at the video below to see the job killing destruction Prop 103 will wreak on our economy. Prop 103: Colorado’s job killing tax increase:

Fox31’s political reporter Eli Stokels also covered our event. Here is the article and video they took. You’ll notice in the video that Eli Stokols makes a mistake. He says that only 1,100 jobs will be lost because of Prop 103. Oops. It’s actually 11,000. Eleven thousand. Big difference.

Senior fellow and super-economist Dr. Paul Prentice recently wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette. In it, he raises two important points: one, that there is a meaningful difference between opinion and news. Second, that there are more schools of economics out there than just Keynesian and ultra-Keynesian. His letter was in response to a Gazette cover story titled, “Economists Support Obama Plan.” As you might imagine, the article presented as news the idea that all of today’s economists (that are worth a darn) believe that Obama’s jobs plan is good and will help turn the economy around. This is where Dr. Prentice points out his two key points.

All the economists quoted in the story come from one school of economic thought, one school among many, who believe in Keynesian economics. The only dissent mentioned in the story is from ultra-Keynesians who didn’t think it goes far enough.

He went on to point out that good newspapers know the difference between opinion and news. He mentioned that the Wall Street Journal also presented some opinions about Obama’s jobs plan, but that in the Journal, they did it a bit differently…

The difference is the Wall Street Journal published these where they belong, on the editorial page, while the Gazette presented theirs where they didn’t belong, on the front page.

See the difference?

There is a story titled, “Radical Changes Sought to Save Postal Service from Collapse,” that you can find in today’s Denver Post. Unlike the completely unfounded fears of “default” we were hearing about our federal government not long ago, fears of Postal Service default rest on sound evidence. According to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe,

The U.S. Postal Service is on the verge of financial collapse and should eliminate Saturday delivery, close thousands of local post offices, restructure its health plan and lay off 120,000 workers to survive.

These suggestions to save the USPS are supposed to be considered “radical.” I disagree. A truly radical change would be more like what now Colorado congressman Jared Polis suggested back in 2001 to save the USPS – privatization.

In his 2001 Independence Institute Issue Paper, Privatizing and Eliminating the Monopoly of the United States Postal Service, Jared Polis argues that our communications technology has outgrown the federal monopoly on mail delivery and consumers would be best served if we freed up the mail services market. Keep in mind, this was a decade ago! He was right back then and he’s even more right now. The USPS will continue to lose money and cost taxpayers millions in bailouts if we don’t do something truly radical. Let’s privatize like Mr. Polis suggested. After all, central planning doesn’t work – even when it comes to something as simple as mail delivery.

Recently I’ve been poking fun at government’s attempts at “stimulating” the economy and creating jobs. You might remember the first food stamp debacle, then the unemployment insurance hilarity, and finally the second food stamp nonsense. Well, my jibes were mere child’s play compared to Amy Oliver’s TownHall.com article on the green jobs fallacy. Amy carefully picks apart the Obama administration’s “weatherization” program meant to “stimulate” the economy with new green jobs all while reducing carbon emissions and saving the planet! It’s like magic!

Unfortunately, down in the land of economic reality, government’s attempts at creating jobs always fails fantastically. For example, after receiving a federal grant of $20 million, Seattle went to work on its weatherization scheme. So what was the result of this massive influx of taxpayer cash over one year later? A whopping 14 jobs “created” and a rise in the unemployment rate. Sounds like success to me! Just imagine all the prosperity we could bring around the country if only the government could help “create” more jobs at nearly $1.5 million a pop. Cha-ching!

Amy reveals not only the massive waste that these jobs programs are, but also the fact that in order to execute these schemes, Washington, DC has to impose its will further into the purview of local affairs. In other words, some bureaucrat in DC has the authority to set the “fair living wage” that the local weatherization workers earn while pretending to do work. Because DC always knows better than you.

Please read Amy’s whole piece, but first put a hat on so you don’t pull out your hair.

Remember Whitehouse press secretary Jay Carney and his ridiculous statement about paying the unemployed and how that “stimulated” the economy? Well, agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack tried to one-up Mr. Carney earlier today. Watch this video (and try not to roll your eyes. I dare you):

Ok, so now food stamps are the most direct way to stimulate the economy. Apparently, unemployment insurance just doesn’t cut it anymore. Sorry Jay. But the truth is no different with food stamps than it was with unemployment insurance: wealth transfers don’t stimulate the economy. Let me repeat. Taking from some (who earned it) and giving to others (who did not earn it) does not, in any way, create wealth. It does not matter what the wealth transfer vehicle is – food stamps or cash – the result remains the same.

The Keynesian story that both Jay Carney and Tom Vilsack tell is nothing more than a half truth. They both focus on what is seen. Some people “spending” on items they might not have purchased without the stolen loot they were given by Daddy Government. In their minds, these purchases spur economic growth and hiring. Put more specifically, in the Keynesian story, these purchases spur economic growth and hiring with no offsetting costs. And that’s where the story ultimately fails. It only considers one side of the equation. The side that is seen. The side that they neglect to mention is the important “unseen” side – all of the costs associated with the redistribution program.

If told this Keynesian fairy tale, an intelligent lay person might wonder where the money came from to give some people food stamps to spend and to give others cash to spend. This is the million dollar question. To answer this question reveals the unseen costs these programs incur. By taking money from productive people, either now or in the future, the government is skewing the incentives in a few important ways. First, the productive people (including business owners) who are targeted for the government shakedowns have a disincentive to keep producing wealth and earning more money. Why keep earning more money if you can’t keep all of it? After a certain point, the take home percentage becomes small enough where the entrepreneur is better off just enjoying some leisure. Secondly, the unemployed who are being paid to remain jobless have the incentive to, now stay with me here… remain jobless. If the government is paying you because you don’t have a job, why would you get a job that could potentially pay you less than you earn sitting on your couch? Finally, the employers who are paying higher taxes in order to give jobless people money and food stamps could have used the money taken from them to hire productive people. These wealth transfers are realized in the higher costs of doing business for employers. Last I checked, it’s employers who hire and create wealth. How about we refrain from taking their money so they can more easily hire employees.

Even if we accept the Keynesian notion of a world with no costs, the whole food stamp scheme still doesn’t make any sense. If it did, then we could create more wealth and prosperity by simply adding more people to the food stamp rolls. Why stop at a few million people here and there? Why not put the whole country on food stamps? Clearly, wealth doesn’t come from buying food with food stamps. It comes from production. Food stamps, oddly enough, are not production.

I don’t want to place all of the blame on Tom Vilsack though. Remember Colorado Springs Gazette reporter Emily Wilkins? She made the same disastrous case for food stamps and their magical stimulus powers in this Gazette article. You’ll recall that Ms. Wilkins lamented the fact that only around 40% of Coloradans eligible for food stamps actually apply for them. She thought it was a shame. I think it’s a shame that economic ignorance is pervasive among bureaucrats in Washington and even some journalists in great newspapers like the Gazette. After all, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see through these stimulus scams. The results are all around us. $11 trillion in stimulus money spent since George W. Bush – and look where that got us.