Wichita Liberty

Just Say It: We Need to Raise Taxes in Kansas

Bryan Derreberry and the Chamber’s Goals for Wichita

Some commentary regarding Wichita’s half-passed smoking ban that I received.

University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Dr. Rick Kellerman is on the front page of the May 30 Wichita Eagle. Kellerman is upset that a complete ban on smoking is not expected to be adopted by the city council at their June 3 meeting.

Who appointed Dr. Kellerman to be Wichita’s doctor? The doctor’s elitist and authoritarian statement in today’s Wichita Eagle indicates that he is either trying to become the 21st century version of the Prohibition era’s Carrie Nation or the 20th century’s version of the infamous Nurse Ratched (see Ken Kesey’s classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) for improper behavior. The arguments that Kellerman uses could also be used to ban everything from firearms, cars, risky behaviors from hang gliding to bungee jumping, and a host of activities that free people exercising their freedom in a responsible way may decide to engage in performing.

While it is a common leftist trait to call their political opponents “fascists” it is a historical fact that the most famous anti-tobacco and anti-smoking advocate in the first half of the 20th century was Adolf Hitler, who was happy to use his tyrannical powers to impose his will upon his subjects. This was (and is) part of the authoritarian elitism that underlies all totalitarian ideologies.

Dr. Kellerman’s desire to follow in these footsteps here in Wichita as part of his campaign to destroy individual liberty, property rights for individuals and business owners, as well as broadly restrict human freedom. Dr. Kellerman knows better than the peasants what is good for us.

Obviously this arrogant professor has never read Thomas Sowell’s the Vision of the Anointed, a book that describes Kellerman’s ideology and elitist arrogance perfectly. The same issue of The Wichita Eagle has a small story about how California’s state senate has passed a ban on smoking within one’s own apartment. Friendly fascism of the nanny state elitists like Dr. Kellerman are active all across this country.

In a column in the April 6, 2008 Wichita Eagle, columnist Mark McCormick writes about the proposed $350 million bond issue for USD 259, the Wichita public school district, and states: “For the average Wichitan, taxes will rise about $45 a year.” How he arrived at this figure is unknown. He may be referring to bond supporters claim that the taxes on a home worth $100,000 will increase by about $40 per year. But that’s quite different from what Mr. McCormick stated.

The actual figure might be computed this way: According to reporting in Mr. McCormick’s newspaper, the proposed bond issue is estimated to cost $590.6 million in principal and interest over 20 years. The state of Kansas will pay about 25%, so the residents of USD 259 will have to pay only $443 million. That’s about $22 million per year. Divide that by the 311,228 people living in USD 259 (not the city of Wichita, as that’s a different political subdivision) and you get, in round dollars, $71. (It’s really more, because USD 259 residents will pay taxes to the State of Kansas just to get some of the bond issue paid for.)

But let’s don’t quibble over the amounts. What’s more important is that Mr. McCormick attempts to trivialize this expense by comparing it to ten other expenditures that people may make, such a buying cable television or coffee at Starbucks.

What Mr. McCormick evidently fails to recognize is that each of the ten expenditures he cites are voluntary transactions that people may make or choose not to make. USD 259, however, collects its revenue not through voluntary transactions, but through taxes. People don’t have a choice whether to pay.

But even this is not the worst of Mr. McCormick’s column. By far the worst part of this column is his endorsement of the delay of the bond issue election from May 6, 2008 to some unspecified future date. This action by the Wichita school board and Citizens Alliance for Responsible Education (CARE) teaches a terrible example about the value of integrity and sportsmanship to the young people of Wichita. Nothing that the bond issue could build is more valuable than these lessons. I hope that in time and with due reflection that Mr. McCormick will change his mind about his endorsement of this action.

A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Some ask why is there no right to clean air when there is the right to smoke. The answer is that both breathing clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

It’s not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else’s property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If people are smoking, and patrons decide to stay, we can only conclude that they made the choice to stay. The owners of bars and restaurants do not have the power to force people to stay and breathe smoke.

Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don’t want to be around smoke.

Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their “right” to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else’s private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they — instead of the property owner — dictate.

Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects freedom and liberty. Under property rights, bar and restaurant owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decision are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as “I’m a non-smoker and I think that …” or “I’m a smoker and …” These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters, but as we have seen, they have little respect for private property.

By respecting property rights, we can have both smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers’ interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate or majority rule, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.