Taiwan Independence Is Not Worth A Cupertino

During the Cold War, it was fine for Taiwan to free-ride on America's anti-communist containment strategy, and to shelter under America's dominant nuclear umbrella. But the situation changed around the time the Cold War ended in 1989.

While communism as an ideology lost the Cold War, the Chinese Communist Party studiously avoided the Soviets' fate. The CCP adopted just enough market freedoms to generate the easy catch-up prosperity needed to bribe its recently-starving citizenry into continued servility. But the CCP's legitimacy also leans heavily on the idea that the evil capitalists and oppressors who took refuge in Taiwan must never gain independence. The CCP's propaganda has convinced its 1.4 billion citizens that Taiwan independence is an intolerable affront to Chinese national identity. Of course, the real problem is that Taiwan is more than 3 times more prosperous than China, and enjoys vastly more political freedom. Together, these two undeniable facts are an existential threat to the ideological legitimacy of the CCP.  For at least thirty years, the CCP leadership has known that they are only one Beijing Spring away from spending the rest of their lives in jail (or worse).

So the CCP leadership is playing for keeps in aspiring to finally complete the conquest of Taiwan. The American guarantee of Taiwan's defense was arguably a good idea back when it had almost no marginal cost. But now, a credible defense of Taiwan would cost America more than Americans (or the people of Taiwan!) are willing to pay. Even worse, it runs a constant and growing background risk of a catastrophic war that would stretch from the Taiwan Strait to at least Guam, inland China, Japan, Wall Street, near-Earth orbit, and cyberspace.

And it could easily lead to nuclear war. If China set up a sea and air blockade of Taiwan, the U.S. would have to either back down, or challenge this act of war by eventually shooting its way through the blockade. Win or lose, the resulting conventional war would be a catastrophe for America's economy. But worse, the war would be an existential threat to the CCP leadership. Military defeat would not be acceptable when they have a nuclear arsenal just sitting there. So they likely would nuke some mainland American target, or at least threaten to.

Which one? It would be a target with high strategic or economic value relative to civilian casualties. So forget Washington D.C. or Manhattan or any major metropolitan downtown. A lower-yield nuke into Pearl Harbor would mostly spare Honolulu, but the Pacific Fleet's carriers would once again not be present, and the historical precedent is not a good one. Hollywood would be an interesting economic/cultural target, but the population density is high, and the headline would be "L.A. Nuked". A better target would be anywhere along the 13-mile line from Sand Hill Road to Santa Clara Stadium. That line is the backbone of Silicon Valley: venture capital, Stanford University, the Page Mill Rd. Stanford business park, the Google campus, and the remainders of the Valley's aerospace and semiconductor industry. That's where South Korea might aim a trans-Pacific nuke if it could. But China would instead be tempted to aim five miles south, and take out the Apple campus in Cupertino -- especially if they thought it would help them dominate the smartphone industry.

Whatever target they chose, America would be much more averse to this escalation than would the CCP. And so America should game this out, and cut its losses. There is no strategic hope for the 24M people of Taiwan to remain independent from those whose control of 1.4B Chinese depends on a commitment to ending that independence.

Taiwan has been a losing hand since the Berlin Wall fell and China's market economy rose. It's just an accident of geography that the CCP victory in 1949 was not total. When the freedom of Taiwan was relatively cheap to guarantee, it was worth guaranteeing. But it's not worth sacrificing a Cupertino.

This is not yet understood -- neither in official Washington nor in Taiwan itself. More than half of the people of Taiwan expect America to fight for their independence, but the people of Taiwan are unwilling to mount a credible deterrent.  So some U.S. president should say publicly what Trump said privately: "Taiwan is like two feet from China. We are 8,000 miles away. If they invade, there isn’t a f***ing thing we can do about it."

Gary Kremen For Tax Assessor

Gary Kremen has a background in private-sector innovation, and a track record in public office for challenging entrenched interests. One of California's entrenched interests is its over-reliance on income taxes, as opposed to land taxes -- which economics textbooks recognize as the least bad form of tax.

This scientific insight about optimal tax structure has no better living advocate than Santa Clara County's own Fred Foldvary, the economist who coined the term geolibertarian and who advocates so eloquently for a Green Tax Shift.

If California is ever to going to shift its tax structure to be more economically and environmentally sustainable, then we will need someone like Gary in place to make sure that the Tax Assessor's office can adapt to the challenges of the 21st century. That's why I support Gary Kremen for Santa Clara County Tax Assessor.

More California Water Prescriptions

Water, Water, Everywhere - Laffer and Winegarden, Pacific Research Institute (2012)

• Higher priced water really would discourage waste and entice additional supplies such as desalinization. Price changes keeping demand and supply in balance are the essence of markets. California’s problem is one of government interference not inherent water shortages. State and local governments have prohibited markets from doing what they do well—allocating scarce goods. 
• Charge all farmers, government agencies, and other water users the same price for water, no exceptions.
• The price of water should be raised such that the average price charged is initially set at five times the current average price.
• Grant all existing water users a credit on 70 percent of the amount of water they used last year. Above that point they would pay the new market price for all water in excess of 70 percent of last year’s usage. If usage were less than 70 percent of last year’s usage, then a credit would be given for their conservation at the new market price.
• Each year the credit will be reduced by 10 percentage points until it disappears in seven years.
•  Government should under no circumstances deprive the natural environment of its water set-asides. Our forests, bays, rivers, and marshes already share the burden of drought with us and can ill-afford any additional deprivation by reducing water set-asides.

Updated policy prescription - Zeitland, Aguanomics (2014)

• Price retail water service so fixed revenues cover fixed costs (e.g., pipes and plants) and variable revenues cover variable costs (e.g., making desalinated water or pumping water). Add an additional surcharge when water is scarce (i.e., to reflect the of of using water now that you may want later). That surcharge can be rebated to customers (by meter, not according to use) if the utility has no deficits.
• Use markets to allocate irrigation water among farmers who cannot take more than sustainable volumes from surface or ground water

In 2009, Zeitland quoted UPI reporter Lloyd Carter:

There are half a million acres of selenium-tainted salty land in the western San Joaquin Valley which require drainage in order to stay in production. Those lands have been without an economical, safe disposal method for vast volumes of drainage water for half a century. Some toxic drainage water, tainted with toxic levels of selenium, continues to be funneled untreated into the Lower San Joaquin River and the Bay/Delta estuary.

Those half million acres of alkali, saltly marginal farmlands use an average of 1.5 million acre-feet of water a year, which would meet the domestic needs of 15 million more Californians. Continued irrigation of those poisoned lands by massive amounts of water pumped from the Delta is also contributing to the ecological decline of the Delta. Until the drainage problem is resolved, or those poisoned lands taken out of production, the major problems of water in California will remain unresolved.

Norcal Wants Its Water Back - Zeitland, Aguanomics (2008)

Self-Evident Water Truths - Rep. McClintock (2013)

Self-Evident Water Delusions - Zeitland, Aguanomics (2013)

Reforming Water Markets - Edwards & Hill, Cato (2012)

Aquanomics - Gardner & Simmons, Independent Institute (2012)

• establishing secure and transferable private water rights and extending these rights to uses that traditionally have not been allowed, including altering in-stream flows and ecosystem operations

My Candidate Ballot Statement For Purissima Election

You own a share of Purissima's two main assets: $20M of pipes/tanks, and the right to buy 800K units/year of water from SFPUC. For each household, that's $10K and 780 gallons/day. I defend those property rights, including the right to use the water you buy as you wish (without harming the rest of us). I defend close local control of the district while seeking savings via alternative arrangements for water supply and district operations.

SFPUC is raising water costs to pay for overdue seismic upgrades. These upgrades mean we can cancel an expensive project to make Quarry Lake an emergency water source. That insurance is not worth the price. I also voted against subsidies for candidate statements and a museum water exhibit.

A Sacramento law was going to make the Hills adopt 33 pages of default irrigation rules. I proposed an alternative that added a simple water budget to the town's permitting process, leaving property owners free to decide how to meet their budget. The town adopted my alternative.

For more (including Purissima budgets and audits), see holtz.org/water.

Purissima Candidate Answers For Town Crier

How long have you lived in Los Altos Hills?  6 years

What is your background experience in local government and community leadership?

In addition to my four years on the Purissima Hills board, I served on the town council's Water Conservation Advisory Committee.  I've also been a classroom volunteer in a local public elementary school.  I've been active in the county Libertarian Party, and have helped the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association draft ballot arguments against tax increases.

How does your professional experience compliment your work on the Purissima Hills Water District board?

In my software engineering career in Silicon Valley, I've experienced first-hand the importance of customer service and controlling expenses. Analytical and problem-solving skills have also proved useful in my board service. However, the main qualification for a candidate is having a policy compass of governance principles, along with the diligence to apply those principles.

To a new resident of Los Altos Hills or someone from outside of our area, how would you describe what the Purissima Hills Water District does?

The District provides potable water and firefighting levels of water pressure to every address within its boundaries.

Why are you running for re-election to the Purissima Hills Water district?

To help ensure that the District runs efficiently and respects the property rights of the ratepayer-owners of the district.

There are four candidates for three open seats.  Why should voters choose you?

Voters should choose me if they agree with my principles and priorities.   My principles are rooted in property rights.  You as a ratepayer own a share of Purissima's two main assets: $20M of pipes/tanks, and the right to buy 1.62M gallons/day of water from SFPUC (the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission). For each household, that's $10K and 780 gallons/day. I defend those property rights, including the right to use the water you buy as you wish (as long as it doesn't harm the rest of us). Ideally, I would like you to be able to sell the water you don't use to community members who want to buy more than their share, so that you could profit from your conservation efforts.

My priorities are to maintain reliable and cost-effective water supply while exploring alternative arrangements for  water sourcing and district operations.

What are the greatest challenges associated with water supply locally?

Purissima's entire supply currently comes from SFPUC's Hetch Hetchy system. We've spent years pursuing other potential sources: well water, Quarry Lake water, recycled water from Palo Alto to our North, and county water from Cal Water to our South. None of these options has yet proved workable, though we are still talking to Cal Water.

In recent years Purissima was using nearly 125% of its SFPUC allocation, even as the overall Hetch Hetchy system  was approaching its capacity limits.  However, as SFPUC has raised wholesale rates to pay for long-deferred seismic upgrades, the rising prices have caused system demand to fall sharply, and there is no longer any imminent prospect of Purissima being limited to just its allocation. Nevertheless, we've tried to buy additional allocation from other agencies that are SFPUC customers, but none is for sale at a reasonable price.

We also consider conservation to be a valid water "source", and so we continue our conservation programs and tiered pricing.  We've successfully cut our usage to 105% of SFPUC allocation.

Can you highlight your accomplishments on the PHWD Board?

A Sacramento law was going to make the Hills adopt 33 pages of default irrigation rules. I proposed an alternative that added a simple water budget to the town's permitting process, leaving property owners free to decide how to meet their budget. The town adopted my alternative.

Another accomplishment has been to question an expensive project to make Quarry Lake an emergency water source. When you look hard at the range of scenarios in which that water could actually be useful, it seems that this insurance is just not worth the price.

Why do you deserve to be re-elected to the board?

Re-election should not be considered a reward for past performance.  Voters should vote for whomever they expect will best implement the voter's principles and priorities. Of course, past performance can be a useful predictor of those principles and priorities.

What goals would you like the PHWD board to set for the next four years?  Are there any long-term goals?

Our goals over the next four years should be to 1) continue our capital spending program to improve seismic reliability and operational efficiency, and 2) explore alternative arrangements for water supply and district operations.

For the long-term, I would like to see Purissima extract itself from the unsound CalPERS retirement system, or at least remain vigilant about keeping our retiree obligations explicit, cost-contained, and fully funded. I would also like Purissima ratepayer-owners to have explicit ownership of their shares of the system -- i.e. the infrastructure buy-in share and the right-to-buy share of Purissima's SFPUC allocation.  Ratepayers who buy less than their share could potentially turn a net profit on their water bill.  This would promote conservation, and would get the District out of the business of setting conservation prices.

Info About Purissima Hills

• 2011 LAFCO review of PHWD - 21pp overview of PHWD by the Santa Clara County agency that oversees county special districts
• 2012 rate hearing presentation - 42pp PDF of the slides we presented
• 2012 review by Los Altos Hills - 11pp PDF presentation Sep 20 by town's ad hoc review committee
• finances summary 1995-2011 - 60-row Excel spreadsheet summarizing PHWD finances 1995-2011
• 2010 financial audit report - 38pp PDF of balance sheets, etc.
• 2015 BAWSCA annual report -  154pp PDF about the peninsula agencies like PHWD that buy water from SFPUC

Argument Against SCVWD Parcel Tax

I drafted for the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association the following ballot argument against Measure B. The Registrar of Voters instead chose an opposing ballot argument that didn't mention the county grand jury criticisms of SCVWD, and that instead based its opposition only on environmentalism.

The only part of the county not in one of five "flood control zones" is the remote area beyond Mount Hamilton. So you pay for "flood control", no matter how high or dry.

SCVWD says the tax has "helped reduce the flood threat" for only 16,000 parcels. Flood protection should be paid for by the 1% who buy flood-prone property, not by the 99% who don't. The tax is also to "ensure safe, reliable water supply". However, SCVWD already directly bills those who buy its water or pump from its aquifers. Improvements to water reliability or quality should be reflected in water price, in order to promote conservation and efficient use. Instead, SCVWD sells water to farmers at a 90% discount.

Grand jury reports have criticized SCVWD over high salaries and wasteful spending. In "Gold Street Education Center -- $1.38M For What?", a grand jury said "educational efforts should no longer be masqueraded as Environmental Enhancements". It noted the center was built adjacent to a trailer park owned a SCVWD director's family.

In "SCVWD Awash In Cash As County and Cities Drown In Red Ink", jurors said that in 2000 the district "polled the public on price points and found $39 would be what voters would accept. Program funding was NOT based on the cost of needed projects." SCVWD has already spent $27,000 in Measure B polling.

Last time, district employees were fined $24,000 for failing to report 75% of pro-tax contributions.

Last time, tax proponents told us that this parcel tax "will end in 15 years".

What are tax proponents telling us this time that will prove to be false in hindsight? What will the next grand jury report tell us about mismanagement at this district?

Non-Profits and Land Value Taxation

Churches and other non-profits are usually exempt from property taxes, but there's no good reason for treating them differently. 

Example: In the Silicon Valley suburb where I live, land is worth about $2 million per acre. There is a 20-acre monastery here (adjacent to the mansion recently sold by Barry Bonds, and down the street from Cisco's CEO) where 16 cloistered elderly nuns sleep on straw mattresses, have no TV, and wake up in the middle of the night to pray.  Their only "work" is "prayer", and they live only on "alms". I kid you not: http://www.poor-clares.org/losaltos/losaltosl.html.

Example: About a mile north of here are hundreds of acres of land owned by Stanford University in the hills above campus, with sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay.  Nearly all of the land is off-limits to everyone but -- wait for it -- cows.  The university grazes a handful of cows there, in order to comply with Leland Stanford's requirement that a demonstration farm be maintained on a portion of the vast amount of land he used to create the university.

So we have nuns and cows, both sleeping on straw, keeping hundreds of acres of prime Silicon Valley land off the market, thus propping up property values for me and my zillionaire CEO neighbors, and making sure that their gardeners and maids can't afford to live anywhere near them.

For the market to be able to guide all land to its best use, all land has to be treated equally -- even land owned by churches and governments.  If people really value churches, they'll either pay for them to occupy prime sites, or they'll drive a little further when they want to go pray as a group.

The Libertarian Perspective On California Water

Private property rights in all water, combined with full-cost pricing in free water markets, is the best (and indeed only) way to match California's vast water supplies to its growing water demands. In practice, this means

• ending the subsidies that make water for agriculture often cost ten times less than urban water, in exchange for giving farmers secure and fully transferable property rights in whatever grandfathered allotments they reasonably deserve;
• defining secure and fully transferable private property rights not only in all surface water but also in all groundwater, so that (for example) environmental groups are given full ownership of water shares needed for ecosystem maintenance;
• making all urban and agricultural water customers bear the full cost of the water they get, while also receiving the full profits when they use less than they are alloted and thus release (i.e. sell) water back into the system;
• allowing efficient and transparent market transfers of water rights 1) among users within water distribution systems, 2) between water distribution systems, 3) between water basins, and 4) between states (such as those with shares of the Colorado River);
• resisting calls for expensive and ecologically suspect new water projects as long as the above policies are not yet implemented.
  

This libertarian prescription of free water markets has been well presented by free-market think tanks like the Pacific Research Institute and the Reason Foundation. The best analysis I've seen so far is Ending California's Water Crisis - A Market Solution to the Politics of Water by Erin Schiller and Elizabeth Fowler (Pacific Research Institute, 1999). Its themes are underscored by Why Water Markets Can Solve California's Water Crisis - Amy Kaleita (Pacific Research Institute, 2008). An earlier study is Water Marketing In California - Richard Wahl (Reason Foundation, 1993).

For up-to-the-minute analysis, I recommend the blog http://aguanomics.com. For example, just today Dr. Zetland posted his analysis of California's draft 2009 water plan. His prescription:

1. Amend state law to require that ALL water rights (ground, surface, riparian, etc.) be adjudicated.
   
2. Retire ALL water rights that have not been exercised for over 10 years.
   
3. Direct DWR and SWRCB to formulate "plain vanilla" procedures to facilitate short term (<1 yr) water transfers within water basins and between basins.
   
4. Require that water resellers raise rates if water consumption rises above long-term (50+ year reliability) average water supplies. Keep raising them until consumption is below sustainable yield.
   
5. Require that ALL directors of a water district or agency resign if a shortage is declared and require a one-term cooling-off term before they can seek reelection.
   
6. Allocate space on "oversubscribed" conveyance according to market mechanisms (i.e., auctions).

Here's his Water Plan: "Structure rates such that everyone gets a human right allocation of water, allow trading among those who have (ground/surface) water rights, and make sure that the price of water fluctuates with water scarcity." Exactly.

LP Behind The Curve On Animal Rights

Verifiable endangerment of a species or ecosystem that is part of the commons of a community is aggression against any non-consenting member of that community.  Persons must refrain from inflicting intentional cruelty on sensate beings, and respect their freedom in proportion to the cognitive capacity of their kind.

Prop 2 just passed in California, giving farmers until 2015 to eliminate the confinement of "pregnant pigs, calves raised for veal, and egg-laying hens in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs." The LPCA ExCom had approved a motion opposing the measure, over my lone dissenting vote of "neigh".  The LP ought to get ahead of the curve here, but we aren't yet institutionally capable of thinking in the shades of gray required by franchise issues like animal rights.  We barely have a handle on children's rights, and have never coherently addressed the rights of the unborn.

Last year Spain became the first nation to extend some individual rights beyond humans. It did so by adopting provisions of the 1993 Declaration on Great Apes: www.greatapeproject.org/declaration.php

For a summary of various declarations of individual rights throughout history, see libertarianmajority.net/bills-of-rights-archive

Suspicious of the California Elections Code

One of the questions we will consider at tomorrow's LPCA Executive Committee meeting in Burbank is whether to authorize California to hold County Central Committee elections for the Libertarian Party. Since every dues-paying Pledge-taking member already counts as a CentCom member, there is not a lot at stake here. I wrote to the rest of ExCom tonight:

1) How does the certification/pledge requirement get enforced on elected central committee members? How does the state decide how many electable spots are available in each district?

2) What motive might one have for seeking election to a county central committee? It appears to be primarily a way to avoid paying dues.

3) The Bylaws talk about election to the "state central committee" via "Libertarian voters in a primary election pursuant to the relevant parts of the election code", but the election code talks only about "county central committees". Why doesn't this mismatch mean simply that there is currently no extant referent for "the relevant parts of the election code"?

4) Do all of the Peace & Freedom election code provisions apply to us? Sections 7800 and 7802 sound like a recipe for a takeover attempt:

7800.  At the convention meeting of the state central committee, the
state central committee shall consist initially of only those
members of central committees elected at the most recent direct
primary election.

7802.  At its convention and subsequent meetings the state central
committee, in its sole discretion, may appoint any additional members
to the state central committee as it may desire.

5) Does our decision affect whether or not 7805 applies to the LPCA? I don't want it to apply.

7805.  This committee may remove any elected or appointed member
who, during the term of membership, affiliates with or registers as a
member of another political party, publicly advocates that the
voters should not vote for the nominee of the party for any office,
publicly gives support to or avows a preference for a candidate of
another party or candidate who is opposed to a candidate nominated by
this party, or has violated the bylaws or constitution of the state
central committee.

I don't agree that the Bylaws mandate County Central Committee elections, even if the ambiguity in (3) above were resolved. Since the Bylaws reference the election code, and the election code says the elections are optional, then the Bylaws references to elected county central committee members could easily have been intended to cover the contingency of the elections having been held, rather than assuming that the elections must be held.

I don't like the idea of the LPCA voluntarily choosing to further entangle our private associations with the state election code -- especially a code written for another party, and with such suspicious provisions. I didn't even mention these other provisions of the P&F election code that I found:

7803.  The state central committee may require a balance of elected
and appointed members so that 50 percent of the state central
committee members from each county are women and 50 percent are men.

7851. A county central committee may require a balance of elected
and appointed committee members to create a total membership division
of 50 percent women and 50 percent men.

There might be more garbage like this, as I haven't read the whole thing. I think we should distance ourselves from it as much as possible, rather than ask that it apply to us (or ask that it apply to us more thoroughly). Unless somebody can answer these questions, I plan to vote against allowing central committee elections.

2007-12-01 Update: The answer to question 1B above is: at least 5, and typically 7 to 15, according to the formula in section 7752.

Note also section 7755, which says that any candidate nominated for partisan office is automatically elected as an additional member of the central committee. Given how few elected CentCom members we have combined with rule 7800 above, this suggests that the latest set of candidates for partisan office could try to hijack the LPCA at any convention.

California's Minor Parties

Here is a guide to the LPC's competition among California's minor parties. Under California law a party is qualified to participate in primary (and thus also general) elections if 1) it achieves as many registrants as 1% of the voter turnout in the last regular gubernatorial election, or 2) had a statewide candidate win a 2% share in that election. Here are the registration numbers and statewide vote totals for the minor parties that have been ballot-qualified in the last four election cycles.

Registrants in 1000s	2000-10	2002-09	2004-09	2006-09
American Independent	296	296	304	309 (2%)
Green	139	147	156	140 (.90%)
Libertarian	95	89	86	82 (.84%)
Peace and Freedom	[?]	70	67	59
Natural Law	58	45	29	22
Reform	79	59	[46]	[32]

Brackets indicate lack of ballot qualification that year.

Votes in %	2002 Gov	2002 SecState	2004 Sen	2004 Pres
American Independent	1.7	1.2	0.6	0.2
Green	5.2	3.9		0.3
Libertarian	2.1	2.8	1.7	0.5
Peace and Freedom			2.1	0.2
Natural Law	1.1	2.4
Reform		1

American Independent was founded as a national party in 1968 to support the Presidential candidacy of segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace. In 1991 the California AIP became an affiliate of the right-wing Constitution Party, which was formerly the U.S. Taxpayers' Party. In the 2004 Presidential election, AIP's vote in California was just 8% of its registered base, compared to 56% for the LP, 25% for the Greens, and 40% for P&F. This confirms the judgment of analysts who say that AIP's registration numbers are wildly inflated by voters trying to register as Decline To State. The AIP favors a moratorium on all immigration, the deportation of all illegal immigrants, and the denial of citizenship to their children born here. The AIP favors bans on all obscenity, all drugs, any form of same-sex unions, and any form of abortion. The AIP defends religious displays on public property and voluntary prayer in public schools. The AIP's foreign policy is nearly identical to the LP's, except the AIP demands U.S. reclaim the Panama Canal. The AIP opposes all free-trade treaties and favors tariffs on each imported item equal to the difference in the cost of its production abroad compared to in America.

The Green Party was formed in 1996 as an association of state Green parties and quickly eclipsed the Green Party USA that had been established in 1991 (and still exists). The Greens out-elected the LP-US 25-7 in 1996, 47-34 in 2000, 81-43 in 2002, and 71 to (at most) 42 in 2004. The Greens also list 47 election wins in 2005, 65 in 2003, and 64 in 2001. Half of all registered Greens are in California. The Greens are radical leftists who favor "restructuring our patterns of income distribution", nationalized health insurance, municipal veto over "large economic projects", a 30-35 hour workweek, gun control, "more progressive taxation" including inheritance taxes, and "increased funding for Social Security, public housing, higher education, public transportation". They say "the artificial dichotomy between 'employment' and 'unemployment' has become a tool of social leverage for corporate exploiters."

Peace and Freedom was founded in 1967, and anti-war Rothbardian left-libertarians competed with Marxists to control it. (Rothbardians took over the California PFP long enough to have Bill Evers co-write its 1974 platform, but Rothbard then joined the LP and Evers followed, where they proceeded to rewrite the LP platform in 1975.) P&F lost ballot status in 1998, but was able to to regain it in 2003 because low turnout in the 2002 gubernatorial election set the registration threshold at only 77K. Like the LP and Greens, the PFP needs to win 2% in some statewide race this year to retain ballot status. PFP calls for "social ownership and democratic control of industry, financial institutions, and natural resources", doubling the minimum wage, a 30-hour work week, and "free high-quality health care for everyone". If you're surprised that PFP "supports the right of working people to keep and bear arms", then remember that The Internationale is featured prominently on their web site.

The Natural Law Party was founded in the early 1990's by followers of Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He stopped funding the party after its failed hostile takeover of the Reform Party in 2000, and the California NLP will lose its ballot status this year because it is running no statewide candidates. The NLP platform called for a flat income tax, market-based healthcare reform, school vouchers, sustainable agriculture, and energy conservation. It straddled many issues, e.g. by supporting the status quo on abortion, immigration and gun control.

The Reform Party was founded in 1995 by Ross Perot and has been plagued by infighting since he abandoned it in 1997. The Reform Party agenda consists of protectionism, procedural political reforms, balanced budgets, and restricted immigration. RP lost its California ballot status in 2003 and will likely never regain it.

Thus the LPC's biggest competitor by far is the ten-year-old Green Party, which positions itself to capture the loyalty of anyone with libertarian impulses but who doesn't understand free market economics. The GP's growth seems to be leveling off, perhaps due to a ceiling effect imposed by the presence of an existing major party in their quadrant of political space. If the LP wants to regain its undisputed title as America's third party, it needs to take advantage of the the absence of competition in its own quadrant by branding itself as the market-smart choice for the plurality of Americans who favor social tolerance.

Guide to 2006 California Ballot Measures

Here are the LP-CA's recommendations for November's ballot measures. The most important ones are 89 (campaign finance) and 90 (eminent domain and takings). 86 (cigarette taxes) and 87 (oil taxes) will have a big impact if they pass. 85 (parental abortion notification) will be closely watched for symbolic reasons. My predictions: 84, 85 and 89 will fail. 88 will pass narrowly, while 86 and 87 will fail narrowly. The rest will pass.

[Update: I was very sad to be wrong on 90, which failed narrowly. I was also wrong about 84 and 88, but right about the rest.]

Yes on 1A - Transportation fund protection. Protects transportation-designated gas tax revenues from further raids by Sacramento.

No on 1B - Bonds for roads, highways, and transit. More than half the revenue would go to agency budgets and local projects rather than state-wide long-term transportation projects.

No on 1C - Bonds for housing. Subsidizes "infill" urban social engineering. Subsidizes moderate-income homebuyers. Ongoing shelter assistance for the indigent should not be funded as a capital expense.

No on 1D - Bonds for education facilities. The government provides food assistance without building supermarkets, and it can provide education assistance without building schools. Any government assistance for education should take the form of vouchers or tax credits, not capital expenditures.

No on 1E - Bonds for Central Valley flood control. Flood control is the responsibility of the districts containing the flood zone(s).

No on 83 - "Jessica's Law" against former sex offenders. 83 seems to impose an ex post facto new punishment of lifetime GPS tracking on people already convicted of a sex crime.

No on 84 - Bonds for water quality, environmental protection, and flood control. $11B in water and resource-related bonds have been approved since 1996. This measure is a Christmas tree of funding for local and regional projects that should be funded by the affected users or districts.

Silent on 85 - Parental notification for minor's abortion. Libertarians are conflicted on this measure. While parents normally must consent to any surgical procedure on their children, children should be protected from parents' efforts to bind them with a multi-decade child-rearing obligation. I wonder if parents would be willing to opt in to the notification rule on condition of an agreement to permanently adopt any resulting grandchild.

No on 86 - Cigarette tax for healthcare spending. Tripling the cigarette tax to $3.50 per pack would demonstrate how black markets put limits on consumption tax revenues. If a hospital accepts cigarette funds to defray state mandates for ER care regardless of ability to pay, 86 imposes price controls for services to patients with income up to 3.5 times the poverty line. 86 thus increases the cross-subsidizing and single-payer problems that make our healthcare system inferior to one in which healthcare consumers control their own healthcare dollars.

No on 87 - Oil extraction tax for alternative energy. 87 naively dictates that the tax "shall not be passed on to consumers through higher prices", and will have the government investigate all price increases. Thus one cannot trust 87's vague hand-waving that a new bureaucracy will apply 57% of the revenues to "market-based incentives" for alternative fuel production, distribution, and vehicles. 37% of revenues are for commercialization of renewable energy technologies, an activity at which government bureaucracy is even less competent. Even proponents of applying resource extraction taxes to incentives for reduced petroleum use find this measure unsupportable.

No on 88 - $50 parcel tax for public K-12 schools. 88 bypasses the Prop 13 2/3 threshold for local property tax increases by making this tax statewide and thus less locally accountable. K-12 education is too important to be a government monopoly. K-12 education just needs one reform: let tuition dollars be controlled by parents. Government support for nutrition doesn't require owning supermarkets, so any government support for education doesn't require it owning schools.

No on 89 - Public campaign financing and limits on campaign contributions/spending. If you restrict the use of monetary resources for political speech, you merely amplify the power of other resources, e.g. celebrity, incumbency, media access and control, membership power magnified by special legal privileges (e.g. unions, churches), etc. Indeed, Prop 89 was put on the ballot by the California Nurses Union, which is trying to use its political muscle to unfairly limit corporate contributions for ballot measures and to make corporations foot the bill for public campaign financing. This 56-page law treats as second-class any candidate from a party that didn't get 10% of the previous gubernatorial vote, so third parties essentially need to have a break-out year before they can have a break-out year. The government would manage the campaign finances of all participating candidates, and would subsidize dollar-for-dollar the major-party opponent of any candidate who dared reject public campaign financing and the strings attached to it. The law even restricts contributions to independent groups advocating for or against particular candidates.

Yes on 90 - Constitutional protection against eminent domain and regulatory takings. A wonderful constitutional amendment that not only would stop abuse of eminent domain, but would also require government compensation when new laws and regulations reduce the economic value of one's property.

Libertarian-oriented guides to the 2006 ballot measures are available at:

http://www.reason.org/californiaballot/index.shtml

http://www.wgla.org/Politics/initiatives2006nov/

http://lpoc.net/index.php?menuID=Page&pid=8

CA Judge Rules Against Write-In Candidates

Minor parties suffered a setback Aug 9 when Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gail Ohanesian ruled that Prop 60's change to the California Constitution does not trump the Elections Code rule about how many votes a primary write-in candidate must get. The Code sets a threshold equal to 1% of the votes cast for the office in the previous general election. However, Prop 60 says that for "a political party that participated in a primary election for a partisan office", the general election ballot for that office shall include "the candidate who received, at the primary election, the highest vote among that party's candidates". Since the requirements for getting qualified as a write-in candidate are much less than for regular candidates, the LP and other parties were hoping to use Prop 60 to relax ballot access requirements. (California's other ballot-qualified minor parties are: Green, American Independent, Peace and Freedom, and Natural Law.)

Judge Ohanesian wrote that nothing in the Prop 60 language "suggests that it applies to the procedures for write-in candidates". Republican Assembly candidate Raylene Wiesner received almost 700 write-in votes in the June primary and had sued Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to be placed on the November ballot. The Democratic Party sought to join the suit on behalf of three of its candidates, but Ohanesian decided that the Democrats lacked standing to do so for want of "direct and immediate interest in the litigation", because her ruling allegedly would only affect Wiesner.

An appeal seems likely, as there are multiple grounds for disputing Ohanesian's opinion. First, she claimed that "the Analysis by the Legislative Analyst clearly stated that Prop 60 would not require any changes to election procedures." However, the Prop 60 legislative analysis inaccurately simplified the Elections Code when it said "the candidate receiving the most votes among a party’s candidates is that party’s nominee for the general election". Second, she didn't address the possibility that a write-in candidate could win more votes than a regular candidate and yet still be excluded from the general election by the 1% threshold, in contravention of the plain language of the California Constitution.

Perhaps the best argument for upholding Ohanesian would be based on what the Constitution means by "a political party that participated in a primary election for a partisan office". One could argue that a party doesn't participate in the primary for an office if it doesn't have any candidates printed on the primary ballot. However, parties don't place candidates on primary ballots -- that's the job of the candidates themselves. Libertarians have generally been much better at doing so than have members of other minor parties, so if Ohanesian is overruled, it may end up being a mixed blessing for the LP.

It's The Incentives, Stupid

Fellow San Carlos K-8 parent Susan Jones writes

It's the Funding, Stupid. Full stop. End of story. There is no bigger issue that the school district needs to address than How-The-Heck-Will-We-Get-Significant-Moolah into the school coffers. I'm talking big money. Millions. We need more money to retain our best teachers.

I don't agree that higher pay for even our worst teachers is in fact the least stupid way to retain our best teachers.

K-12 education in America just needs one reform: put adequate tuition dollars in the hands of parents, and let a thousand K-12 startups blossom. Can you imagine the customer-focused entrepeneurship of a Dot Edu Explosion sparked by de-socializing K-12? Can you imagine if the bottom-percentile tenure-and-pension-seeking unionized civil servant educators had to compete with school startups fighting for market share and staffed by teachers whose stock options depended on parental satisfaction with student achievement? Can you imagine if our best teachers got five-figure annual bonuses, without regard to where they stand in the union tenure pecking order?

The government should of course provide mandatory standards and safety-net assistance for things like education, food, and shelter. But this no more requires government ownership of schools than it requires government ownership of supermarkets or dormitories. You "get what you pay for" only if the people you pay know you have the option of paying someone else.

K-12 education is too important to be a government monopoly, but government schools have 89% market share because 100% of their potential customers have to pay for the product even if they consider it too inferior to actually use. K-12 education is also too important to be a charity, and yet the government monopolization of this industry leaves every school's PTA doing constant fundraising. My children's education is important, but not any more so than their nutrition or their healthcare or their physical safety. Nevertheless, our local supermarket doesn't conduct silent auctions to raise money so that the food there will be safe and nutritious. And our doctor doesn't run bake sales to make sure he has up-to-date medicines and instruments. And our airline doesn't organize car washes to make sure the wings don't fall off when we fly off to visit the grandparents. There is no sound economic argument for the K-12 industry being a government monopoly, and its status as a monopoly in America is simply a historical accident. The post-secondary education industry in America is much closer to a free market, and (surprise!) post-secondary education in America is the best in the world.

In the absence of reforms that put tuition dollars in the hands of parents, any extra funding intended to retain our best teachers should be aimed exclusively at our best teachers through merit pay. Instead of giving more to the school fundraiser du jour, I'll be donating anonymously to the kindergarten teacher(s) that I most want to still be there when my two younger kids enter school.

For a 3-page survey of the economics of education, see the article from the Concise Encyclopedia Of Economics at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicSchools.html. For a 12-page overview of how to improve K-12 education in America, see the Cato Institute's Policy Handbook chapter at http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb109/hb_109-30.pdf. See also the Reason Foundation's 2005 primer on K-12 education in California at http://www.reason.org/pb40_california_education_reform.pdf. For my previous postings on education, see here and here and here. For my candidate statement in the 2001 San Carlos School Board race, see here.

P.S. No discussion of education should fail to note that what parents do with their kids outside the classroom will always be the biggest differentiator in their children's education.