(Full Disclosure: I consulted for Margaret Donnelly during her 2008 run for Attorney General.)
Sometimes I'm not sure what world the glibertarians at Show Me Institute live in. Last week, Margaret Donnelly, Missouri Director of the Department of Health and Senior Services, called for Missourians to wear purple on Monday to raise awareness of senior abuse. Sounds innocent enough, right?
In the eyes of Show Me Institute contributor Sarah Brodsky, this constituted leading an official government-sponsored protest against senior abuse. Somehow, this will send us on the slippery slope to official state condemnation of unpopular demonstrations, though she never makes it clear how.
One could quibble with the efficacy of a call to wear purple as a tool for raising awareness, but what Brodsky objects to is any and all government intiatives to alter behavior:
But protesting abuse and deciding what color to wear should be left to the private sector, without state influence one way or the other. [I swear, I did not use an Ayn Rand quote generator to make that sentence up. -Clark]
You could just as easily take a page from Brodsky's book and use a slippery slope argument (otherwise known as a fallacy) to say that following Brodsky's objection would lead to anarchy and murder.
Either way, it's a joke. Donnelly wasn't "protesting" against senior abuse; she was trying to raise awareness about a serious problem. And there's nothing wrong with government officials calling attention to a cause that private citizens (mostly doctors) organized.
It's an odd feeling to be cheering Sarah Steelman for doing the right thing. (Though I still have a wary eye out for an ulterior motive in her announcement that she has changed her mind about the ethanol mandate in Missouri.) She now opposes it.
Missouri requires that 10 percent of all gasoline be ethanol, and Steelman chose "a busy Springfield street side for her announcement that 'within 100 days of being elected Governor, I will do everything in my power to repeal the ethanol mandate in Missouri.'"
She opposes the mandate because "it has produced higher food prices and higher costs for farmers since going into effect January 1."
The Missouri Corngrowers Association, predictably, disagrees, but let me just say, before I present their side of it, that Mark Twain's observation is particularly apt here: "Tell me where a man gets his corn pone, and I'll tell you what his 'pinions is." Anyway, here's the corn growers' spin:
"Removing the ethanol requirement in Missouri would only increase prices at the pump for already hurting consumers."
The corngrowers tell us that using ethanol will save Missourians $285 million this year and over $2 billion over the next ten years.
The motto of school voucher advocates in Missouri must be, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, because big money donors to state legislators who favor vouchers have already given more campaign contributions--fourteen months before the elections!--than they did in 2004 and 2006.
In 2004, $385,340 was donated. Last year, even though it was an off year election, contributions went up; pro-voucher candidates received $403,840. So far in this election cycle, $483,850 has already been given. Of course, a major reason the contributions are so high this cycle is that between January and June there were no caps on contributions.
Indeed, now that the Supreme Court has put the kibosh on that travesty, Jay Nixon is returning all his over-the-limit contributions. But the big honcho in the pro-voucher camp, Rex Sinquefield (pictured), filed a legal argument with the Supreme Court asking that none of his donations be returned to him. His brief, almost but not quite, said: I bought 'em fair and square. Okay, what he actually said was that his political groups gave money early in the cycle because that's when it helps the most, and he doesn't want it back. For whatever that argument is worth.
Which brings us to Sinquefield's two groups: All Children Matter and the infamous Show Me Institute.
All Children Matter exists in only ten states, and we're among the lucky ones to be targeted. Most of the money for it comes from out-of-state, with less than a third coming from actual Missourians. Make that Missourian, singular, as in Rex Sinquefield. Ninety-five percent of the in-state contributions come from him.
Indeed, now that the Supreme Court has put the kibosh on that travesty, Jay Nixon is returning all his over-the-limit contributions. But the big honcho in the pro-voucher camp, Rex Sinquefield (pictured), filed a legal argument with the Supreme Court asking that none of his donations be returned to him. His brief, almost but not quite, said: I bought 'em fair and square. Okay, what he actually said was that his political groups gave money early in the cycle because that's when it helps the most, and he doesn't want it back. For whatever that argument is worth.