Soak the poor

Here is the basic tax structure in Montana:

Soak the rich through steeply progressive and confiscatory income taxes.

Discourage business through steep business equipment and corporate income taxes.

Discourage private ownership through high property taxes.

Make it expensive to drive Montana's long distances through high gasoline taxes.

Punish sinners through high tobacco taxes.

And tell the poor that they are getting a great deal because of not having a sales tax, while soaking them by encouraging tinhorn "casinos" at which the state gets 15% of the 100% that they lose in the machines.

A Missoulian editorial recently estimated that the average gambling Montanan wagers more than $2050/year on video gambling. The editorial goes on with some sobering facts from a 1998 study:

"nearly half the gamblers were people with below-average income. One-fifth of the gamblers then had incomes under $15,000 a year (1997 dollars). Twenty percent were on Social Security. Seventy percent were employed. Five percent were on public assistance.

As the editorial correctly states, "people are entitled to do whatever legal thing they want to do with their money, and video gambling is among the legal forms of gambling in Montana." One won't find anyone at Montana Headlines telling anyone not to gamble -- it's their business. Perhaps those who don't gamble, like everyone at Montana Headlines, should be grateful that this is one tax that someone else is paying.

But as the editorial continues, it is more than legal, it is sanctioned and even encouraged by the state. A little honesty would be in order: gambling is Montana's backdoor tax on the poor.

Nothing better to do?

Native Americans have historically been sorely handled by America. Only someone in a state of denial would try to claim otherwise.

Native American communities furthermore have many pressing needs and problems, many of which require government help and intervention.

It is thus reasonable to ask what burning need justifies intervention by the Montana Human Rights Bureau into what a school's athletic teams are called in a town on Flathead Reservation. One would think that a town that is 1/3 Native American would be perfectly capable of working this one out for itself. But then, minding one's own business is an increasingly lost art.

So is prioritization.

Full-day kindergarten in Montana -- truth in advertising

State superintendent of schools Linda McCulloch is understandably plugging all-day kindergarten at the legislature and in the media. The program would make for a permanent increase in public education spending, and that will please the public education lobby in the state.

There should be a little truth in advertising, though. She states:

Nationally 63 percent of kindergarten students are currently attending full-time kindergarten. Many of these programs have been in place for more than thirty years.

Ah, words like "many" can hold a host of meanings. A study done by the Kansas State Department of Education in 2001, which is not that long ago, revealed that only 12 states required full-day kindergarten be available, and of those, only 4 required attendance.

Now, of the top 10 states in SAT scores, in 2006 only two states are to be found to have had full-day kindergarten required in 2001 -- North and South Dakota. As a side note, South and North Dakota ranked dead last in average salaries for teachers (50th and 51st respectively -- D.C. is included in the list). Their rankings on expenditures per student were 38th and 51st, respectively. But the relationship between spending and actual educational achievement is another story for another time.

There is a disconnect here. It is misleading to say "many," when as little as 5 years ago, there were only 12 states requiring full-day kindergarten be available. One would expect a correlation between states that require it and school achievement as measured by objective standards.

Perhaps such evidence exists, but it would be hard to come by, since the real test is whether students graduate from high school and go out into the world of college and jobs being functionally literate. It takes at least 19 years to prove that. As a curmudgeon at the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute recently wrote, the reasoning tends to be circular:

Success will follow implementation, because the success will be the implementation. The praises and awards will be given to the man who was brave enough to push such a beneficial program forward against hostile and vile opposition; a program that not only benefited the kids, but also got the economy back on track.