NASHVILLE – The Beacon Center of Tennessee, founded as the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, today made available in electronic version its most recent publication, An Idea a Day: 51 Ideas for a Prosperous Tennessee. The second of its kind, the pamphlet offers one innovative free market idea for each remaining legislative day of the 107th General Assembly. Each idea is surmised in one brief sentence, followed by a link to original work published by the Beacon Center or contact information for more details.

Hardcopies of the pamphlet will be provided to each member of the General Assembly upon their return to session in January. The electronic version was sent to members and their staff today as the Legislature prepares for the second session of the 107th General Assembly.

“When lawmakers look for solutions that will expand individual liberty, return taxpayers’ hard-earned money to their pockets, and reduce the size and scope of government, they now have a place to turn,” said Justin Owen, the Beacon Center’s president & CEO. “We hope members of the General Assembly will frequently turn to this simple, concise resource as they conduct the people’s business.”

A new feature was added to the second edition of An Idea a Day, with a special emblem marking ideas that will create jobs and/or save taxpayers money. This makes it easier for lawmakers to identify those issues that are a top priority for taxpayers: job creation and tax cuts.

The electronic version of the pamphlet, complete with links to original Beacon Center work on the ideas offered, can be viewed by clicking here or visiting http://www.beacontn.org/wp-content/uploads/An-Idea-a-Day-2012.pdf.

The Beacon Center of Tennessee’s mission is to change lives through public policy by advancing the principles of free markets, individual liberty, and limited government. The Center is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan research organization committed to providing timely free market solutions to public policy issues in Tennessee.

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by Justin Owen

Nashville is a thriving Southern city. Tourists and residents enjoy the music, entertainment and other amenities the city offers. One group, however, doesn’t fare so well. Home-based business owners, street vendors and food-truck operators get tangled up in a web of restrictive laws merely trying to earn a living.

Take Pat Raynor, for example. Pat is a widow who had planned to establish a small hair salon inside her remodeled garage. After meeting requirements to start her small business, Pat hit a brick wall. Nashville officials told her that she couldn’t open her salon without breaking the law. A Metro ordinance prohibits home-based businesses from serving any customers at home. The ordinance is one of the strictest in the nation.

Street vendors face their own barriers to success. To become a street vendor in Nashville, one must jump through a myriad of hoops, and that’s only before facing city officials who arbitrarily enforce vague and confusing laws.

One of these unlucky entrepreneurs is Tim Smith, who earns his living selling sunglasses at major events such as the annual CMA Music Festival. Tim takes painstaking efforts to comply with all the laws imposed upon him. Yet, during the 2009 festival, a codes enforcement officer arbitrarily shut down his stand.

The reason? According to Tim, the officer had shut down other stands in the area, and he couldn’t justify letting Tim continue to operate there. Despite breaking no laws, Tim lost $10,000 in much-needed income.

Until now, food-truck vendors were fairly free from the onerous rules imposed upon entrepreneurs like Pat and Tim. This could be why the industry has boomed, with food trucks cropping up all over Nashville.

This has caught the attention of bureaucrats in the Metro Traffic and Parking Commission, who now seek to regulate these mobile entrepreneurs. Interestingly, the biggest backers of food-truck regulations are the brick-and-mortar businesses that compete with these mobile vendors for customers.

This is all too often the case. As if entrepreneurs such as street vendors and home-based business owners don’t have enough to overcome, their would-be competitors team up with overzealous bureaucrats to drive them out of business.

Laws such as those for nuisances and zoning already keep the peace and prevent harm to neighbors and customers alike without putting small-scale entrepreneurs out of work. Additional and unnecessary regulations like those imposed upon Nashville’s home-based businesses, street vendors and food-truck operators should be eliminated unless they directly protect the health and safety of citizens.

These entrepreneurs have a right to economic liberty, to earn an honest living free from arbitrary and needless government regulations. The tough economy is already making life difficult for entrepreneurs like Pat, Tim and thousands of others like them. Nashville government should seek to help, not harm, their chances of success.

Justin Owen is president and CEO of the Beacon Center of Tennessee (formerly the Tennessee Center for Policy Research) and co-author of “A Burdensome Tune,” a report analyzing Nashville’s regulations on local entrepreneurs; www.tennesseepolicy.org.

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The entire TCPR report, titled “A Burdensome Tune,” can be downloaded at this link.

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NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Center for Policy Research issued a policy report today exposing how Nashville’s regulatory environment harms local entrepreneurs and small businesses. The report, titled A Burdensome Tune, analyzes the litany of rules and restrictions placed on home-based businesses, street and food truck vendors, sidewalk salesmen, taxi drivers, valet service operators, and auctioneers.

These often-unnecessary regulations are harming thousands of Nashville residents. Despite the fact that roughly 13,000 of its residents work from home, Nashville is one of the most unfriendly cities in the nation when it comes to home-based businesses. For instance, Pat Raynor, a widow, cannot establish a small hair salon in her own residence because city regulations prohibit any home-based business from serving customers at home.

Street and food vendors also get caught in a tangled web of regulations in the Music City. Tim Smith, who sells sunglasses to tourists during large events such as the annual CMA Festival, recently lost more than $10,000 in income due to the arbitrary enforcement of vague rules imposed by the city government.

As if the current regulatory environment was not burdensome enough, the Metro Nashville Traffic & Parking Commission will meet this afternoon to propose stringent new regulations on the city’s food truck vendors. With the recent recession limiting job opportunities, more than 70 entrepreneurs have opened food trucks in Nashville, serving everything from tacos to hamburgers, to the delight of Nashville residents and tourists. In an effort to protect more powerful brick and mortar businesses, the commission is seeking to impose onerous and unnecessary regulations on these entrepreneurs.

“The red tape spewing out of Metro Government must be cut,” said TCPR President Justin Owen. “Home-based business owners, street vendors, food truck operators, and other Nashville entrepreneurs have a right to earn an honest living, free from arbitrary and needless government regulations.”

Competitors of these entrepreneurs frequently try to curb competition by promoting rules and regulations that make it nearly impossible for a small-scale entrepreneur to thrive.

“Powerful businesses often use government as a blunt instrument of force to harm and in some cases even shut down their competition, typically under the guise that the regulations are necessary to protect the health, safety, or welfare of citizens,” Owen said. “However, as A Burdensome Tune shows, legal recourse already exists to protect the health and safety of Nashville residents without putting people out of business.”

The report, which can be downloaded at http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/A-Burdensome-Tune.pdf, offers five solutions that would alleviate the burdens on local entrepreneurs, moves that would benefit not just them, but also the entire Nashville community.

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan think tank committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee. Through research and advocacy, the Center promotes policy solutions grounded in the principles of free markets, individual liberty, and limited government.

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by Allyn Milojevich

In June 2009, the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed “cap and trade,” aim­ing to reduce green­house gas emis­sions by 83 per­cent over the next four decades. While the bill is best known for enact­ing a sys­tem of car­bon cred­its that can be traded on a pseudo-market, it also cre­ates a series of reg­u­la­tions meant to sub­si­dize renew­able energy. Most of these renew­able sources of energy have been unprof­itable in the pri­vate sec­tor and their use will only increase con­sumer costs. The Sen­ate is expected to put sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion to a vote after the Novem­ber election.

In Ten­nessee, it is esti­mated that the cap and trade sys­tem would cause gaso­line prices to rise by 27 per­cent, elec­tric­ity prices 64 per­cent and nat­ural gas prices 73 per­cent over the next two decades.

The aver­age house­hold energy bill could increase from $124 to $327 each month by 2030. The cap and trade scheme would dis­pro­por­tion­ately impact those on fixed incomes, such as the elderly.

Because they spend a larger per­cent­age of their income on energy, those with the low­est incomes would face a 5 per­cent jump in their energy costs.

Fur­ther, due to an increase in man­u­fac­tur­ing costs, up to 52,000 jobs could be lost in Ten­nessee alone. Tennessee’s schools, uni­ver­si­ties and hos­pi­tals could also expe­ri­ence a 20 to 30 per­cent increase in energy prices, forc­ing tuition and med­ical bills to rise.

Higher energy prices would have a large impact on Tennessee’s gross state prod­uct (GSP). It is esti­mated that Tennessee’s GSP could drop by $9.8 bil­lion annu­ally. Man­u­fac­tur­ing as a whole might fall as much as 6.6 per­cent while energy inten­sive sec­tors — like chem­i­cal pro­cess­ing and auto­mo­bile pro­duc­tion — could plum­met by as much as 14 percent.

The “other half” of the House-approved bill pro­poses a “renew­able port­fo­lio stan­dard” (RPS), requir­ing util­ity com­pa­nies to pro­vide 20 per­cent of their energy from “green” sources. These sources are expen­sive and inef­fi­cient, though Ten­nessee has already pledged tax­payer dol­lar towards this dif­fi­cult goal. The state, in con­junc­tion with the Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee, has allo­cated $32.5 mil­lion for a solar farm in Hay­wood County. While this project may cre­ate a few jobs, it is unlikely to raise the per­cent­age of Ten­nessee power from solar sources far above one percent.

The leg­is­la­tion also cements in place the use of ethanol as a fuel. Ten­nessee has sup­ported “ethanol hys­te­ria” by mak­ing an ini­tial invest­ment of $40.7 mil­lion, and promis­ing an addi­tional $5.3 mil­lion annu­ally, to build a plant for con­vert­ing switch­grass to ethanol. Before tax­pay­ers get too excited about this alter­na­tive energy they’re invest­ing in, it should be noted that accord­ing to the venture’s chief exec­u­tive, “tech­nol­ogy for con­vert­ing switch­grass into fuel is still in development.”

Ten­nesseans should turn to the free mar­ket, clearly defined prop­erty rights and tort law to effi­ciently address envi­ron­men­tal problems.

Pri­vate enter­prises have also attempted to address car­bon con­cerns with­out gov­ern­ment prod­ding, such as Calera, a California-based com­pany that devel­oped a method for trans­form­ing CO2 into cement.

Rather than fix our nation’s envi­ron­men­tal trou­bles, cap and trade leg­is­la­tion will do noth­ing more than harm Ten­nessee fam­i­lies already strug­gling to stay afloat.

Allyn K. Milo­je­vich is a research fel­low at the Ten­nessee Cen­ter for Pol­icy Research, the state’s free market think tank.

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NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, the state’s premier free market think tank, released a policy report today demonstrating the impact that cap and trade legislation could have on Tennessee’s economy.

It is widely expected that Congress will attempt to pass some form of cap and trade in its lame-duck session after the November elections. The House of Representatives already passed one version of cap and trade in June 2009, and the Senate could pass the same legislation or take up a similar proposal when it reconvenes.

Using estimates released by the American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers, the policy report, titled Cap & Trade: A Lame (Duck) Proposal, details how the proposed legislation would impact Tennessee. Among the additional costs Tennesseans could face include:

• By 2030, gas prices could rise as much as 27 percent, electricity as much as 64 percent, and natural gas as much as 73 percent;
• The average Tennessee household’s disposable income could decline by more than $1,100 per year;
• The legislation could cause Tennessee to lose as many as 52,000 jobs and lose $9.8 billion annually;
• Schools, universities and hospitals could face a 20 to 30 percent increase in energy costs, causing tuition and healthcare costs to skyrocket.

“Not only would cap and trade fail to fix those environmental problems that actually do exist, it would wreak havoc on the Tennessee economy,” said TCPR president Justin Owen.

The policy report offers a more effective and efficient approach to address environmental concerns without devastating the national and state economies.

“The real solution is free market environmentalism,” said Allyn Milojevich, TCPR research fellow and author of the report. “A system of well-defined property rights and tort law can correct our environmental woes and actually improve, not hamper, the economy.”

The report can be downloaded in PDF format at: http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/Cap-Trade-A-Lame-Duck-Proposal.pdf

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee by advancing free markets, individual liberty, and limited government.

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by Dr. Richard Grant

On ancient maps it was common to fill in unexplored or feared regions at the edges of the world with pictures of serpents or the warning, “Here be dragons.”

Today it remains unwise to venture into such territory unprepared either to survive or to accept the consequences.
 With greater knowledge and technology, we travel casually beyond ancient frontiers. But we still fear dragons, the unknown.

We also attract trouble when we believe we know more than we really do. That is why we put limits on children. That is also why we put limits on government.

Why do countries with high levels of government control tend also to be countries with high levels of poverty? Government officials cannot possibly possess the knowledge necessary to create and direct resources to their most important and productive uses.

The socialists’ belief that it was possible to centrally plan prosperity is what Professor Friedrich Hayek labeled “the fatal conceit.” 
Government in America is growing, not because of its past successes, but because of progressives’ conceit. They do not know how much they do not know.

That gives them the confidence of the child, raised on Disney films, who skips happily into the jungle to play with Bambi. They imagine that if we just let government write the script, then we will always have a happy ending.

When life doesn’t follow that script, we often hear charges of “market failure.” But not often enough do we recognize the ubiquity of government failure.

“The Market” is often imagined as a unified collective entity, some sort of counterpart to government. But that is a misunderstanding. Markets are really just an activity: the exchanges of goods, services and information between individuals. Even exchanges between companies are conducted by individuals on behalf of other individuals with whom they have agreed to associate.

It is in these exchanges and associations that real information and market knowledge are produced. By their actions in production and exchange, individuals reveal information about their preferences and true abilities. They also generate information about the availability of, and need for, various resources. This information is most useful when the transactions are least hampered by third parties, such as bandits and governments.

This is where governments can play a useful role. Productive exchanges will continue to occur only when the traders (and third parties) respect one another’s rights to the property that they trade. Governments can help protect those property rights. When governments fail at this task, then governments fail.

Countries prosper when their governments help to define, extend and protect property rights. Most of our social problems are due to a failure or inability to assign clarity to property rights. Who is liable for the consequences of one person’s actions? Who has a claim to our income and wealth? Who owns the seabed or has a right to the resources (whether fish or oil) in the Gulf of Mexico?

Clearer answers to these questions would help us now as we watch the damage to property from oil gushing into the Gulf from a botched drilling operation. Accidents happen, but they are less likely where property rights and rules of liability are clearest and where infractions are detectable. Basic laws against theft, fraud and aggression provide our first and most powerful line of defense. Modest, rational regulations can reduce the costs of enforcement of our property rights.

But current levels of regulation go way beyond reason. Intrusive regulation tends to blind us to external reality and to the likely consequences of our actions. How did BP perceive its need to make provisions for potential liabilities from its operations in the Gulf? We might ask the same question about the de facto custodian of the territory in which the oil well was drilled, the U.S. government.

Did the custodian not require BP to purchase adequate insurance? High insurance premiums warn us of dragons.

Richard J. Grant is a professor of finance and economics at Lipscomb University and a scholar at the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. His column appears on Sundays.

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Hardcopies of the pamphlet were provided to each member of the General Assembly last week. The electronic is now available to members and their staff as the Legislature embarks on the second session of the 106th General Assembly.

“When lawmakers look for solutions that will expand individual liberty, return taxpayers’ hard-earned money to their pockets, and reduce the size and scope of government, they now have a place to turn,” said Justin Owen, Director of Policy at TCPR. “We hope members of the General Assembly utilize this simple, concise resource as they conduct the people’s business.”

The pamphlet offers solutions in each of the following policy areas:

• Budget
• Education
• Government Reform
• Government Waste
• Healthcare
• Property Rights
• Regulation
• Taxation
• Technology
• Transparency
• Transportation

The electronic version of An Idea a Day, complete with links to original TCPR work on the ideas offered, can be viewed by clicking here.

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The Legislators’ Guide to the Issues provides free market policy solutions to issues related to:

• Transparency
• Government Reform
• Budget & Taxation
• Education
• Property Rights
• Healthcare
• Regulation
• Technology
• Transportation

Hardcopies are available by request. Please e-mail us at info@tennesseepolicy.org.

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