David Boaz

Does three make a trend? I can’t recall hearing much discussion of legalizing prostitution in the recent past, and suddenly this week I’ve seen three significant reports in the media. Are they straws in the wind? Could the legalization of prostitution be the next social reform to come to the fore?

First, last Thursday the Telegraph reported on a new study from the venerable free-market think tank in London, the Institute for Economic Affairs:

Scott Walker touts his record as a fiscal conservative. But this morning, reports the Associated Press, 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took a break from the presidential campaign trail Wednesday to commit $250 million in taxpayer money to pay for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Walker’s come under a lot of criticism from both left and right for his arena funding plan, including an article I wrote at the Huffington Post after he defended his plan on ABC’s “This Week.” Such deals are paid for by average taxpayers to benefit millionaire players and billionaire owners. But millionaires and billionaires have more influence than average taxpayers, and the pictures around stadium deals are great: 

Calling the new NBA stadium a “dynamic attraction for the entire state of Wisconsin,” Walker signed the bill at the Wisconsin State Fair Park surrounded by state lawmakers, local officials and Bucks team president Peter Feigin.

The economics, not so good. Walker has claimed a ”return on investment” of three to one, which he says is “a good deal” for the taxpayers. Economists disagree. As Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys wrote in a 2004 Cato study criticizing the proposed D.C. stadium subsidy, “The wonder is that anyone finds such figures credible….

Our conclusion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city’s economy. The net economic impact of professional sports in Washington, D.C., and the 36 other cities that hosted professional sports teams over nearly 30 years, was a reduction in real per capita income over the entire metropolitan area.

Republican voters are looking for fiscal conservatives and straight talkers. We’re hearing a lot of denunciations of corporate welfare and crony capitalism. And here’s a leading conservative candidate for president sitting down in front of cameras to sign a bill handing $250 million in taxpayers’ money (Bloomberg says $400 million with interest) to wealthy owners of a sports team (some of whom, no doubt coincidentally, are large donors to his campaign), in defiance of free-market advocates and virtually all economists. Will the other Republican candidates take him on? Will they denounce this wasteful extravagance?

Or will we have to rely on John Oliver to do the job small-government Republicans ought to be doing?

Recently I got an envelope at home that looked important. It had no return address, just a notice that said “DO NOT DESTROY/OFFICIAL DOCUMENT.” Trembling, I tore it open. The reply envelope inside also looked official, with “PROCESS IMMEDIATELY” emblazoned across the top. But since it was addressed to the Republican National Committee, I began to suspect that it wasn’t actually an OFFICIAL DOCUMENT. It did say that I had been specially selected “to represent voters in Virginia’s 8th Congressional District” and that I was receiving documents registered in my name, with tracking code J15PM110. The document must be returned by August, 17, 2015.

So in another words, just another dishonest communication from a political party. The dishonesty didn’t even wait for the letter, it started with the outer envelope.

But I wouldn’t take time to complain about mere political dishonesty. What I actually found interesting was the first question on my 2015 CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT CENSUS. It was a simple question, asking how I describe my political ideology:

1. Do you generally identify yourself as a:

• Conservative Republican
• Moderate Republican
• Independent Voter who leans Republican
• Liberal Republican
• Tea Party Member
• Libertarian
• Other____________________

So it’s nice to see that at last political professionals are noticing the existence of libertarian voters. My colleague David Kirby and I have been writing about libertarian voters for about nine years now, starting with our paper “The Libertarian Vote.” In that paper we found that some 13 to 15 percent of voters give libertarian answers to three standard questions about political values. (And as Clive Crook wrote in the Atlantic, why do so FEW Americans give such “characteristically American answers” to the questions?) The Gallup Poll, with a slightly easier test, found that 24 percent of respondents could be characterized as libertarians. David Kirby found that some 34 percent of Republicans hold libertarian views, which might just be what the RNC wants to investigate.

However, our studies have also shown that more voters hold libertarian views than know or accept the word “libertarian.” In a followup study done by Zogby International we found that only 9 percent of the voters we identified as libertarian chose the “libertarian” label. (That is, only 9 percent of 15 percent, or about 1.5 percent of the electorate.) Fifty percent chose “conservative” and 31 percent “moderate.” So the RNC survey, even if the results are actually tallied, is likely to underestimate the number of Republicans who hold libertarian views. A better question, which they didn’t ask, might be 

“Would you describe yourself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal?”

In the Zogby survey 59 percent of respondents answered “yes” to that question. When we made the question a little more provocative, adding the word “libertarian”–

“Would you describe yourself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also known as libertarian?” 

–44 percent of respondents still said “yes.” Now that would be a fun question for the RNC to ask next time! Or indeed the DNC.

A Washington Post story on Egypt’s addition to the Suez Canal reminds me of stories about stadiums, arenas, and convention centers. First, there’s a leader with an edifice complex:

There was no public feasibility study, just an order from the new president. He wanted Egypt to dig a new Suez Canal. Oh, and he wanted it completed in a year.

That was last August. And on Thursday, with much pomp and circumstance, President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi inaugurated the new waterway — an expansion of the original, really.

And then, as noted above, there was no real study. In the United States elected officials usually commission bogus studies that economists laugh at.

There’s the hoopla in place of sound economics:

For the past few weeks, the country has been bombarded with messages, slogans and propaganda — all extolling the virtues of what the government is calling Egypt’s “gift to the world.” The canal will double shipping traffic and change the world, officials say. In a countdown to the opening, the flagship state newspaper said: “48 hours… and the Egyptian dream is completed.”

Just this week the mayor of St. Louis, saved by a judge from having to endure a public vote on taxpayer funding for a new NFL stadium, exulted:

“Having an NFL team in a city is really, I think, a huge amenity,” he said. “It’s one of the things that make living in a big city fun.”

Like the stadiums, the new canal path wasn’t needed:

But less important amid the hyper-nationalist fervor, it seemed, is the fact that the $8 billion expansion of one of the world’s most important waterways probably wasn’t necessary….It will probably shave only a few hours off the time that vessels wait to traverse the canal. Global shipping, economists say, has been sluggish since the 2008-2009 world financial crisis.

As with stadiums and other grand municipal projects, economists scoff at the purported benefits:

“This is politics. [The government] wants to give the impression we are entering a new phase of the Egyptian economy,” said Ahmed Kamaly, an economics professor at the American University in Cairo. Egypt’s economy tanked with the turmoil of the Arab Spring, with foreign reserves plummeting and the tourism industry suffering.

“It’s all propaganda,” Kamaly said of government’s grand promises of a revived national economy. “The benefit is overestimated.”

Egypt wants to be known as a modern country. Well, spending taxpayers’ money on white elephants is certainly a characteristic of rich, advanced countries. But $8 billion is a lot even in the white elephant league.