Month: March 2014

To read the
headlines, you’d think the biggest controversy involving the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is over the spat between Rep.
Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in the
course of an aborted hearing into the IRS’s targeting of primarily
conservative political organizations. Lost in this silliness is the
real issue: the threat to political expression inherent in the
federal tax apparatus, no matter whether through malice, regulatory
zeal, ineptitude, or sheer weight of bureaucracy. That giving the
IRS the power to decide what sort of speech is acceptable was a
stupid, stupid idea should have been clear from the beginning,
writes J.D. Tuccille. The tax agency has a history of use as a
bludgeon against enemies of sitting administrations and the IRS
itself, which goes back long before the current kerfuffle. Ending
such abuses will require ending the IRS.

View this article.

The anti-pot group Project SAM
claims recent data from Washington show that marijuana
legalization makes the roads more dangerous. According to State
Toxicologist Fiona Couper, the share of drivers charged with
driving under the influence of a drug whose blood tested
positive for THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive ingredient,
rose from 18.6 percent in 2012, the year that voters approved
legalization, to 24.9 percent in 2013. That’s an increase of more
than 33 percent, as Project SAM emphasizes with a scary-looking bar
graph. By comparison, the THC-positive share rose by 6.6 percent
between 2009 and 2010, rose by 4.1 percent between 2010 and 2011,
and fell by 7.9 percent between 2011 and 2012. “Even before the
first marijuana store opens in Washington, normalization and
acceptance has set in,” says Project SAM Chairman Patrick J.
Kennedy. “This is a wakeup call for officials and the public about
the dangerousness of this drug, especially when driving.”

In truth, these numbers do not tell us anything about the
dangerousness of marijuana. They could merely reflect an increase
in consumption. If more Washingtonians are smoking pot, more
drivers will test positive for THC, which does not necessarily mean
they are impaired. The cutoff for a positive test result is two
nanograms per milliliter of blood, less than half the level set by
Washington’s new per
se standard for DUID, which itself is not necessarily a good
indicator of impairment.

Assuming that marijuana consumption in Washington rose between
2012 and 2013, can that increase be attributed to legalization?
Supplying recreational marijuana remains illegal until the first
state-licensed shops open later this year, and I-502, Washington’s
legalization measure, does not allow people to grow their own. But
it has already eliminated penalties for possession of up to an
ounce by adults 21 or older, which may have had an impact on
consumption.

A key question in assessing the impact of legalization on road
safety is whether more pot smoking will mean less drinking. If so,
the net result could be fewer traffic fatalities, even if there is
an increase in the number of stoned drivers, because alcohol has a
more dramatic effect on driving ability than marijuana does.
A study published
last year by the Journal of Law &
Economics found that adoption of medical marijuana laws
is associated with a decline in traffic fatalities,
possibly because of such a substitution effect.

According to data from the Washington State Patrol, the number
of drunk driving arrests fell from 17,382 in 2012 to 15,401 in
2013, an 11 percent drop. By comparison, the number of drunk
driving arrests fell by 2 percent between 2009 and 2010, stayed
about the same between 2010 and 2011, and fell by 6 percent between
2011 and 2012. Although the drop in drunk driving arrests after
marijuana legalization looks unusually large, it should be
interpreted with caution, since the number of arrests is partly a
function of enforcement levels, which depend on funding and
staffing. Still, the drop is consistent with substitution of
marijuana for alcohol.

The number of DUID arrests by state police also fell after
legalization, from 1,621 in 2012 to 1,357 in 2013, a 16 percent
drop. By comparison, DUID arrests stayed about the same from 2009
to 2010, rose by 12 percent from 2010 to 2011, and fell by 7
percent from 2011 to 2012. Again, enforcement levels might have
something to do with the drop. But these numbers do not suggest
that Washington’s highways are awash with dangerously stoned
drivers.

While the Western media may be squarely focused
on the crisis in Ukraine, especially now that there’s a
recognizable “villain” in Russia, protests in Venezuela continue
even as the government holds on to power. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez
spent 14 years as president, building his idea of a “Bolivarian”
socialist revolution. During that time, he became something of a

darling to some Western leftists. Then he died and was replaced
by Nicolas Maduro, his successor, who
barely won the presidential election last year despite
mobilizing even the defense ministry for his campaign. Venezuela is
one of the most oil-rich countries in the world, but you might not
be able to tell by its economic condition, especially since Maduro
took power. The country has experienced shortages and price
controls on everything from
toilet paper to
used cars.

As usual, even with a bounty of natural resources, socialism, a
system that rejects economic realities and laws, was bound to fail.
And as the veneer of chavismo is chipped away by the ham-handed
Maduro, Venezuela’s government is finding less allies in the West
ready to defend it. Enter Mark Weisbrot, a Westerner who will
likely never have to live under the nightmare that is
full-throttled socialism, writing for the Guardian with a
vapid defense of Venezuela’s government. Forget the price controls,
forget the state violence (it was provoked, according to Weisbrot),
forget the arrest of a prominent opposition leader (the Venezuelan
government is only being “portrayed” as repressive), Venezuela is
not Ukraine, writes Weisbrot, because the conflict in Venezuela is
about rich vs. poor, left vs. right. You can read the
whole cringe-worthy thing here, but I’m only going to subject
you to the closing:

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles tried to bridge
this divide with a makeover, morphing from his prior right-wing
incarnation into Venezuela’s Lula in his presidential
campaigns, praising Chávez’s social programs and promising to
expand them. But he has gone back and forth on respect for
elections and democracy, and – outflanked by the extreme right
(Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado), last week refused offers
of dialogue by the president. At the end of the day, they are all
far too rich, elitist, and right wing (think of Mitt Romney and his
contempt for the 47%) for a country that has repeatedly voted for
candidates running on a platform of socialism.

Back in 2003, because it did not control the oil industry, the
government had not yet delivered much on its promises. A
decade later, poverty and unemployment have been reduced by more
than half, extreme poverty by more than 70%, and millions have
pensions that they did not have before. Most Venezuelans are not
about to throw all this away because they have had a year and a
half of high inflation and increasing shortages. In 2012, according
to the World Bank, poverty fell by 20% – the largest
decline in the Americas. The recent problems have not gone on long
enough for most people to give up on a government that has raised
their living standards more than any other government in
decades.

“Most Venezuelans,” writes Weisbrot. It’s the kind of
intellectual dishonesty you can expect from the leftist apologists.
Remember, Maduro defeated Capriles by a razor-thin margin,
something successors of popular leaders are usually able to avoid.
But who cares when class warfare can be waged? The “47 percent”
might as well be treated like the “1 percent.” Weisbrot
conveniently whitewashes the sorry state of affairs in Venezuela,
because he gets to live in a first world country where the
every-day worries of Venezuelans are largely unimaginable. It’s not
just high inflation and shortages, for example. Venezuela has among
the weakest rules of law,
according to the World Justice Report, with more than half of
government officials involved in corruption and three-quarters of
Venezuelans feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods at night. Crime
soared under Hugo Chavez, and Venezuela is now
one of the most dangerous countries in the world; there were
nearly 28,000 murders in 2013.

The ongoing protests in Venezuela, while largely ignored in the
Western media, do in fact have something in common with the
protests that happened in Ukraine: they were both sparked, at least
in part, by a government that was
out of touch with people. In that way, Weisbrot provides a
useful lesson in how blind adherence to ideological dogmas leads to
government leaders, policy analysts, and other political operators
to be so out of touch with the people their politics and policies
hurt. The quest for socialism is only democratic insofar as a
razor-thin majority can impose its will on a minority not much
smaller than it, in the name of class warfare or envy or some
twisted misappropriation of social justice.

The city of Glendale, Calif.,
paid $1 million dollars to purchase an arcade in 2010. Let’s just
start with that. They wanted the property, not the machines, as
part of a redevelopment plan, but eventually the owner just gave
them everything for $1 million dollars. The way the Glendale
News-Press
recently described the sale, it sounds like the owner threw in
the towel under pressure:

The former owner, Andranik Shahinian, initially didn’t want to
sell the building to the city, preferring to close the arcade and
bring in a retail chain, but those plans never came to fruition.
There were talks of eminent domain and actor Zachary
Quinto, known for portraying Spock in “Star Trek” movies in
2009 and 2013, hosted a Save the Arcade event there in 2009.

In the end, however, Shahinian handed over the keys.

Glendale had its own plans for the space. It has pulled in the
Museum of Neon Art from a
temporary location in downtown Los Angeles to a permanent home in
that spot (and two other nearby properties), to anchor the city’s
plan for a cultural arts district.

But then Gov. Jerry Brown killed off the notoriously corrupt
redevelopment agencies (RDAs) in cities across the state in order
the try to bring the tax revenues redirected to the agencies back
into the school systems and other special districts. It left the
assets cities bought with redevelopment agencies frozen, and cities
would eventually be required to sell them off and send the money
back to Sacramento.

So Glendale was left with 50 old arcade machines in storage
while the building was renovated for this museum (the deal for the
property having been completed before Brown’s actions).
This week Glendale was told that the arcade machines could be
sold, and they’re planning to dump them. After paying $1 million of
taxpayer dollars for the property, they’re hoping to get about
$100,000 for the games.

That sounds about right, thought they might get a bit more for a
few machines if they’re rare enough. There is a culture of Gen.
X-aged arcade nostalgia
enthusiasts who buy old machines, refurbish them, and make
their own home arcades in dens or basements (I would probably be
one of them if I had the money, a den, or a basement).  

In the meantime, three years after the purchase, the Museum of
Neon Art is still trying to raise money to finish the
renovations to move into the space. Their site indicates they need
$1.5 million to complete the interior and notes that this is after
the city gave them money to finish the building’s exterior. So the
city paid to buy the building and paid again to renovate the
exterior. The city wants this museum to anchor its art district,
but the museum is still struggling to get donors, still looking for
more than $1 million to finish its internal renovation and open the
museum by the end of the year.

I called the museum just to verify they were still needing
donations and ended up having an interesting conversation with Kim
Koga, the museum’s executive director, who explained that the death
of RDAs added delays to the fundraising. She had plenty of praise
with Glendale’s redevelopment agency, which she credits for saving
the museum after the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency
(CRA) was unable to continue helping them stay in the downtown
area. She explained that as downtown Los Angeles revived, the
museum didn’t fit the developer’s plans anymore.

It’s an interesting observation about the way RDAs can end up
working out. At one point, the CRA thought the museum was a great
addition to downtown Los Angeles, but as circumstances changed they
found themselves pushed out. Now Glendale thinks the museum would
be a great addition to their city, and they were willing push
others out to bring the museum there. So what happens down the line
if the museum doesn’t take off the way Glendale hopes? Will they be
pushed out for something else?

Former Reason Editor Tim Cavanaugh railed
against the corruption of the CRA and redevelopment agencies in
general back in 2011 and 2012. But even absent corruption or crony
capitalism, the involvement of government in making development
decisions creates the possibility of property owners being forced
out because officials have a different idea of what their city
should look like. It creates an unstable environment where nobody’s
ownership of property feels safe.

Also, as an aside, doesn’t it feel weird that Shahinian would
have to give up his arcade for a neon museum? Talk about two great
tastes that go great together. Maybe the museum should try and snag
those machines and incorporate them in as a way to earn some extra
change. At the very least, they should approach whoever buys the
machines to see if they’re interested in donating to the
museum.