Nebraska poised to reform occupational licensure. This week, the Nebraska Legislature passed a bill that reforms occupational licensure based on the Institute for Justice's model reforms. The bill, which still needs the governor's signature, would put revisions to the regulations on a fast track, writes the editors of the Wall Street Journal:
[The] Occupational Board Reform Act […] says the state should "use the least restrictive regulation to protect consumers." This means, for example, that the state could use alternatives like periodic inspections to guarantee clean and safe hair salons and barber shops. That would spare cosmetologists and barbers some 16 months of training.
Nebraska lawmakers have reformed outrageous occupational licenses one at a time, but this would allow wholesale reform. Legislative committees would review 20% of existing licensing requirements annually. They'd consider whether a license is really necessary, whether the training requirements are overly burdensome, and whether the certification is abused to exclude competition. The committees would also examine whether it's less time- and cash-intensive to get the same licenses in neighboring states.
["A Model for Licensing Reform," The Wall Street Journal, April 3]
Reason's Eric Boehm writes:
Nebraska licenses at least 174 different professions. (The full list, including "acupuncturists," "bulk milk haulers," "geologists," "nail technicians," "personal trainers," and even "swimming pool operators," was included on page 3 of the original version of Ebke's bill.) The Platte Institute has found that "many of Nebraska's licensing requirements are more burdensome than its neighboring states."
A 2017 report from the Institute for Justice highlighted how little sense some of the state's licensing rules make. Becoming a cosmetologist in Nebraska requires 2,100 hours of training, compared to just 138 hours of training required to become an emergency medical technician. It is such arbitrary, nonsensical rules that the five-year legislative review process will target.
[Eric Boehm, "Nebraska Just Passed a Major Occupational Licensing Reform Measure. Here's Why It Matters." Reason, April 18]
The government doesn't know how to run an insurance program. That's one of the lessons from hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria last year, says a report from the Heritage Foundation:
A large proportion of the flood-risk maps are obsolete, and thus the premiums charged under the NFIP do not reflect actual risk.
Of the mapping in FEMA's inventory, only 49 percent is designated as "valid," meaning that the
map "adequately identifies the level of flood risk." Another 11 percent is designated as "unverified," which is FEMA-speak for deficient. In addition, 39 percent is "unknown," as in yet to be validated.
In its review, the Technical Mapping Advisory Council concluded, "Many populations across the Nation are not covered in updated, valid flood studies and are therefore subject to unknown flood risk."
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of 5 million policies in effect as of August 31, 2016, found that overall, considering all expenditures and premium income, the NFIP had an expected one-year shortfall of $1.4 billion. The CBO attributed the shortfall largely to premiums falling short of costs in coastal counties, which constitute three-quarters of all policies nationwide. […]
Most coastal policyholders—such as those affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma—do not pay premiums that cover their anticipated losses, the CBO found. Those costs are covered by artificially higher premiums paid by inland policyholders, resulting in a cross-subsidy.
A significant share of the subsidies are enjoyed by a relatively small number of "repetitive loss properties," such as the Houston house submerged by Hurricane Harvey—which has been flooded 22 other times since 1979. According to The Wall Street Journal, the house is valued at about $600,000. The government has spent $1.8 million to rehabilitate it.
How to fix it:
The House re-authorization bill would require FEMA to share claims data with private insurers and recognize private insurance as eligible to fulfill federal lending requirements for coverage. But private insurers cannot compete against taxpayer-subsidized premiums. Therefore, the real solution is to eliminate the subsidies and other giveaways that secure the government's flood insurance monopoly.
[David Inserra, Justin Bogie, Diane Katz, Salim Furth, Monica Burke, Katie Tubb, Nicolas Loris, and Steven Bucci, "After the Storm: Lessons from Hurricane Response and Recovery in 2017," The Heritage Foundation, April 16]
California's big government policies have become unsustainable. Writes Thomas Del Beccaro:
How much in debt are the California governments? That's hard to know too. According to a January 2017 study, "California state and local governments owe $1.3 trillion as of June 30, 2015." The study was based on "a review of federal, state and local financial disclosures."
In other words, that $1.3 trillion in debt is the amount to which California governments admit. Other studies believe it to be more. Indeed, one study says it is actually $2.3 trillion and a recent Hoover Institute stated that there is over $1 trillion in pension liability alone, or $76,884 per household. […]
California has the highest income tax rates. The top rate is 13.3%. The next closest top tax rate is in Oregon at 9.9%. However, Oregon does not have a sales tax. California has the 10th highest sales tax.
What is remarkable about the California income tax isn't just that it has the highest rate, it is how little income it takes, just above $52,000, to qualify for California rate of 9.3%. Given the high cost of living in California, that means many Californians are subject to that rate.
On the other hand, for more than a decade, less than 150,000 of California's 35+ million people pay half of all of its income tax – a highly imbalanced system. […]
Also, California's middle class has been hollowed. A recent CNBC headline read: "Californians fed up with housing costs and taxes are fleeing state in big numbers." Where are they going? Many have left for low tax states offering more jobs than California.
They have been replaced by those taking advantage of California's magnet government policies, which increase California's long-term spending needs. For those that remain, according to Smartasset.com "California has the highest debt-to-income ratio in the country."
Little wonder, the demographer Joel Kotkin concluded that "the state is run for the very rich, the very poor, and the public employees." It is also how California found itself with the worst poverty problem and why "California ranks dead last among U.S. states in quality of life, according to a study by U.S. News." […]
[Thomas Del Beccaro, "The Top Four Reasons California Is Unsustainable," Forbes, April 19]
Honoring those who bear witness. The Ladies in White are the 2018 recipients of the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, the Cato Institute has announced:
The Ladies in White have a simple message: The political prisoners of Cuba are our sons, our brothers, and our husbands. They must not be forgotten.
Every Sunday, the Ladies gather, or attempt to gather, for mass at Saint Rita de Casia church in Havana, followed by a procession down Fifth Avenue. They wear white to symbolize the peaceful nature of their protest, and each wears a photograph of a loved one who is incarcerated in Cuba's notoriously harsh prisons. For this, the authorities have constantly harassed them and organized mob violence against them.
The movement began on March 18, 2003, when journalist Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez was arrested in his home in Havana and sentenced to 20 years in prison for criticizing Fidel Castro's regime. His case drew worldwide attention, with Amnesty International calling him a prisoner of conscience and demanding his release. Around 75 others were arrested at the same time in an incident that has been called the Black Spring. All have since left prison, though not unconditionally, with the majority having had to leave Cuba. Since that time, sporadic arrests of journalists, lawyers, and other intellectuals have continued in Cuba, belying the myth that with normalized relations, Cuba's human rights record would improve. If anything, it has deteriorated.
Two weeks after Maseda was arrested, his wife, Laura Pollán Toledo, brought together a group of wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the imprisoned to pray for their loved ones. They have continued to gather each Sunday, and the movement has since spread to other churches throughout Cuba. They are not a political party and do not have an overtly political message, but rather they seek freedom of expression for all and the release of prisoners of conscience in Cuba. Because of their work, the Ladies have faced increasing police harassment and arrest in recent years, as the Cuban government tries to hide — but not change — its habit of quashing dissent.
["Cato Institute Honors Human Rights Group, the Ladies in White, with 2018 Milton Friedman Prize," Cato Institute, April 16]
What's a political ad? Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will require those who want to run political or issue ads to be verified and to show who paid for the ads. Facebook, writes Michael R. Strain, is likely to find the task of identifying a political or issue ad harder than it realizes:
If a foreign public health organization buys Facebook ads to raise awareness about, say, malaria vaccinations, should Facebook label them as engaging in political activity? If users in the U.S. see the ad while foreign aid is an election issue, does that count as foreign interference? If a U.S. university buys ads to promote the research of its faculty, and that research is on politically salient issues like the minimum wage, should the university be labeled as politically active? What if a religious organization does the same on social issues?
[Michael R. Strain, "Facebook Fixes Won't Be Easy," Bloomberg View, April 20]
Facebook's plans entail a serious risk of bringing forth a charge of selectivity in policing political content—the same problem that the Internal Revenue Service encountered nearly a decade ago when it tried to apply extra scrutiny to the non-profit status applications of conservative organizations.
Of course, as a private company, Facebook can discriminate against whatever content it wants. Yet this company also wants government policies—net neutrality—that prevent other private companies—Internet service providers—from discriminating against content on their networks.
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