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Missouri Department of Economic Development on Twitter

Initial unemployment claimants totaled 1,588 during the first quarter, dropping 71 percent compared to 5,508 in the fourth quarter, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The number of mass layoff events across Missouri totaled 21 during the first quarter compared to 34 during the fourth quarter last year, according to the statistical agency in the U.S. Department of Labor.

As reported by Missouri Journal on Tuesday, more people in the state started new jobs during April than left the labor force for the first time this year.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 6,000 during the month, according to the unemployment report from the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Meanwhile, the labor force in the state dropped by 2,301.

To be counted as unemployed, a person must be actively searching for a job.

By Brian R. Hook, brhook@missourijournal.com, (314) 482-7944

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Copyright 2012 Missouri Journal. All rights reserved.

• A description of the charter school's policies on student discipline and student admission, which shall include a statement, where applicable, of the validity of attendance of students who do not reside in the district but who may be eligible to attend under the terms of judicial settlements - a nod to the continued limbo of the Turner decision.
   
• A description of the charter school's grievance procedure for parents or guardians- these don''t always exist for the parents in public schools. Nice to see they will be required by charter schools.

•  The sponsor of a charter school shall give priority to charter school applicants that propose a school oriented to high-risk* students and to the reentry of dropouts into the school system. If a sponsor grants three or more charters, at least one-third of the charters granted by the sponsor shall be to schools that actively recruit dropouts or high-risk students as their student body and address the needs of dropouts or high-risk students through their proposed mission, curriculum, teaching methods, and services. One constant complaint about charters is that they cherry pick their students and toss those students who are problematic. This would give some priority for schools who would like to specifically help those students. It does not guarantee that such charters will exist, but it will be interesting to watch whether any apply.

*For purposes of this subsection, a "high-risk" student is one who is at least one year behind in satisfactory completion of course work or obtaining [credits for graduation, pregnant or a parent, homeless or has been homeless sometime within the preceding six months, has limited English proficiency, has been suspended from school three or more times, is eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch, or has been referred by the school district for enrollment in an alternative program high school credits for graduation, has dropped out of school, is at risk of dropping out of school, needs drug and alcohol treatment, has severe behavioral problems, has been suspended from school three or more times, has a history of severe truancy, is a pregnant or parenting teen, has been referred for enrollment by the judicial system, is exiting incarceration, is a refugee, is homeless or has been homeless sometime within the preceding six months, has been referred by an area school district for enrollment in an alternative program, or qualifies as high risk under department of elementary and secondary education guidelines.

• At high risk schools Student performance shall be based on sponsor-approved comprehensive measures as well as standardized public school measures. A glimmer of reality for these students? They may not be able to meet performance targets of regular public school students.  This language might give the charter schools a little wiggle room to set separate (and more appropriate) performance targets for the most challenging students.

• Proposed or existing high risk or alternative charter schools may include alternative arrangements for students to obtain credit for satisfying graduation requirements in the school's charter application and charter. Alternative arrangements may include, but not be limited to, credit for off-campus instruction, embedded credit, work experience through an internship arranged through the school, and independent studies. This will merit close watching. Charters may be tempted to use as many of these as possible with their toughest cases in order to meet graduation targets. Those students may not have been pushed hard enough in their regular academic work and may graduate with lower actual skills as a result.

• Charters must define what services they can provide for children with disabilities. Such services must comply with IDEA guidelines. It does not require that charter schools provide these services. This has been a problem with charters in other states like Louisiana where none of them accept children with disabilities because they do not have the staff to work with such children.

• The charter application must provide clear documentation that the education program and academic program are aligned with the state standards and grade level expectations. This means the same Common Core Standards that are in the regular public schools. Same material, just a different location for delivery. Not necessarily an improvement.

The value of cropland has grown more than 20 percent for two consecutive years, according to a quarterly survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

The two years of increases of more than 20 percent is the first time in the history of the survey of the Tenth District, which includes western portions of Missouri.

Ranchland values also climbed higher during the first quarter, increasing 16 percent compared to last year.

Around a third of survey respondents expect the upward trend in values to continue through the next few months.

Farm credit conditions also strengthened in the first quarter while demand for loans dwindled. Agricultural producers are paying down debt and using more cash for operating expenses and capital spending.

“Record-high farmland prices prompted landowners to place more land on the market,” according to the quarterly survey. “Despite larger supplies, buyers remained willing to pay record prices.”

By Brian R. Hook, brhook@missourijournal.com, (314) 482-7944

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Copyright 2012 Missouri Journal. All rights reserved.

Kansas City’s business and occupational license system is very complicated (p. 41-42). The Citizens’ Commission on Municipal Revenue (CCMR) has decided to continue its work with a singular focus on simplifying and improving the license system. It has identified the problem, and seems serious about a solution. Kansas City would greatly benefit from these changes that would treat businesses equally and require less work to administer.

Dedicated taxes with sunset provisions are good things. However, it is possible to go too far with dedicated taxes, and Kansas City has probably done so. For example, Kansas City previously, and unnecessarily, chose to dedicate its entire 1 percent baseline sales tax to capital improvements (p. 29-30). The committee is right to suggest that Kansas City loosen the requirements for that tax so that it can be used for more general purposes.

One of the major disappointments in the report is the refusal to take on Tax Increment Financing (TIF) (p. 18). It is difficult to see how a commission tasked with reviewing municipal revenues could overlook TIF beyond a meekly-worded warning that Kansas City carefully evaluate future TIF projects.

One of the most audacious suggestions was, to be fair, not included in the final recommendations.  The commission considered suggestions to end earnings tax refunds to non-residents for work out of the city (p. 26). Put another way, the city wants to tax the income of people who do not live in Kansas City for work they did not do in Kansas City.  The fact that the commission even considered ways to keep tax money it does not have a moral or legal right to is disturbing.

One tax idea that has widespread agreement among economists is the benefits of land taxation to fund local governments. Land taxation is fair, consistent, has very limited economic distortion, encourages investment, and is easy to collect. Kansas City is the only local government authorized to collect a land tax in Missouri. So, what does the CCMR want to do with the single-best tax that Kansas City enacts? Get rid of it, of course, and replace it with higher sales taxes (p. 36-37).

Kansas City has a tax that other cities in Missouri should envy and economists would almost universally encourage. And this is what the CCMR wants to eliminate.

The mayor wishes to enact the changes suggested in this report by putting it on the ballot later this year. I hope the city council thinks twice before replacing less harmful taxes like the land tax with broader, higher, and more damaging substitutes.

The bill originally was a relatively uninteresting piece of legislation meant to improve procedures for Missouri counties making purchases. Now, the poor thing is bloated with language addressing, among other things, Springfield School District board elections, local debt collection, economic development boards, and the creation of a Kansas City land bank.

The land bank “amendment” alone added 35 pages to SB 729. This is the third time the land bank legislation has been tacked onto an unrelated bill. First, it was attached to a bill that was supposed to improve transparency. Then it was added to a bill that was supposed to help counties manage their budgets.

This last-ditch attempt to push legislation to the finish line by any means necessary is unfortunate and opaque. We saw efforts like this last year, when legislators rolled an extensive list of bills into a 356-page behemoth that entailed the creation of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits. Despite that bill’s failure, it appears that land bank proponents are taking a page from tax credit proponents’ strategy manual.

If legislators intend to vote on this bill before the end of the legislative session on Friday, I hope they at least take time to read it. The land bank legislation (or “amendment”) raises a number of questions that remain unanswered:

• Why allow a government land bank to bid against private would-be buyers? Don’t we want this property to have a chance of being redeveloped privately? (141.984.6)
• Why allow a government land bank to incur debt without limitation? (141.981.6 (3))
• Why allow a government land bank to borrow against promised funds from the state of Missouri? (141.994.1)
• Why allow a government land bank the power to build, construct, lease, and furnish property? Wouldn’t that put it in direct competition with the struggling private real estate market? (141.983 (13))
• Why create a government land bank? Where is one example of a government land bank that has accomplished a significant reduction in vacant government-owned property?

With the creation of a partisan spoils system in the nineteenth century, both parties practiced the politics of patronage. But, starting with the New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the power of big government to transform whole classes of society into clients of the Democratic party. Urban machines, southern segregationists, and organized labor all benefited from this approach. FDR's successors—Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter—followed suit, turning African Americans, environmentalists, feminists, government workers, teachers, and a number of other groups into loyal Democratic factions. As a result, the Democratic party has become a kind of national Tammany Hall whose real purpose is to colonize the federal government on behalf of its clients.

No longer able to govern for the vast majority of the country, the Democratic party simply taxes Middle America to pay off its clients while hiding its true nature behind a smoke screen of idealistic rhetoric. Thus, the Obama health care, stimulus, and auto bailout health care bill were created not to help all Americans but to secure contributions and votes. Average Americans need to see that whatever the Democratic party claims it is doing for the country, it is in fact governing simply for its base.

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Rep. Todd Akin on Twitter

Akin has brought in nearly $80,00 in political donations from people tied to firms that have received $31 million in earmarks, according to a report published by the Washington Examiner.

The report cites 11 companies, which received earmarks sponsored or co-sponsored by Akin.

In February, a report by the Washington Post noted Akin secured $3.3 million to upgrade a highway near nine acres owned by his family.

A  spokesperson for Akin responded each time. In the latest report, a spokesperson said the earmarks had nothing to do with the political donations, similar to the response following the report about the property located near the highway upgrade.

Akin is currently running against millionaire businessman John Brunner and former Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman to oust Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, in the Republican primary.

McCaskill filed a bill to permanently eliminate earmarks from the legislative process in January.

By Brian R. Hook, brhook@missourijournal.com, (314) 482-7944

For news updates, sign up for a newsletter and follow Missouri Journal on Twitter and Facebook.

Copyright 2012 Missouri Journal. All rights reserved.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 6,000, according to the latest unemployment report from the Missouri Department of Economic Development.

Meanwhile, the labor force dropped by 2,301.

For the year, Missouri has added 35,500 jobs.

The state revised the March payroll numbers higher by 4,800, according to a press release.

No one from the economic development department would respond to questions regarding whether any of the other numbers were revised.

The unemployment report for March posted online has not been revised

Therefore, using the unrevised data, 31,533 left the labor force since the start of the year.

Until April, more people left the labor force each month than new jobs were added.

To be counted as unemployed, a person must be actively searching for a job.

The unemployment rate in April dropped to 7.3 percent compared to 7.4 percent in March.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the state unemployment report on Friday.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon hit the road to tout the numbers, stopping in Forsyth and Kansas City.

“Whether it’s the tens of thousands of new jobs created so far this year or the continued explosion of state exports, the progress of Missouri’s economy is undeniable,” the governor said in a statement.

As reported by Missouri Journal last week, exports increased 15.4 percent to $3.9 billion during the first quarter compared to the same period last year. Nationally, exports increased by 8.7 percent.

By Brian R. Hook, brhook@missourijournal.com, (314) 482-7944

For news updates, sign up for a newsletter and follow Missouri Journal on Twitter and Facebook.

Copyright 2012 Missouri Journal. All rights reserved.

"Why is this important? Because by promoting extremists like Ted, Rush or Glenn, these companies (and they are not alone) are lowering the standards of our national debate and encouraging Americans to consume garbage rather than substantive thought. "

"Ted Nugent and Rush Limbaugh make the perfect couple. No, I am not implying a homosexual relationship between them (although it is entirely possible) but a true meeting of the minds and hearts. Ted and Rush are not just both conservatives, but conservatives who love to hate, and have made a successful career out of it."

"Rush's rants and bigoted comments have become so common that we barely notice them anymore..."

"... spewed hatred towards our leader and advocated violence against him ..."

"Ted and Rush make a lot of money by throwing Molotov cocktails into the public discourse, and the organizations and companies who give them the platform to do so enjoy the benefits as well. "

"The Tea Party is a powerful force but it is misdirected and driven by blind ideology rather than common sense. If they really want to make a positive change, they need to examine where the real problem lies and address that."

We do not live in a pure democracy anymore but in an oligarchy, and the only checking force that protects us from abuse is the government.

WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY! NEVER WERE! NEVER TRIED TO BE! WE ARE, AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, A REPUBLIC!!!

"What Palin really needs to do is shut up. She needs to stop her fear-mongering and her hate-mongering and either learn to be a responsible leader or vanish back into the obscurity from which she came."

"... those who provide them with the outlet to spew their hatred do it to protect "freedom of speech" but that is utter nonsense. Freedom of speech is a guy in his basement posting his views on the Internet without being censored, or an activist picketing Capitol Hill without being arrested. Giving someone like Ted, Rush or Glenn a national megaphone to advocate bigotry, while making a massive profit out of it, has nothing to do with protecting the First Amendment, but with making lots of money. ..."

"Why is this important? Because by promoting extremists ... are lowering the standards of our national debate and encouraging Americans to consume garbage rather than substantive thought. "