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April 20, 2006

Subsidizing Failure

Republicans and Democrat - well, quite a few of each - agree that "corporate welfare", the direct or indirect subsidy of business by taxpayers through direct cash payouts, tax breaks or deferments - is generally a bad idea. Of course, for most people their opposition breaks down when they get to their pet project or interest, but as a very general rule, "Corporate Welfare" gets people on edge.

The notion of subsidizing poverty - of making being poor a tenable option for life, sometimes called "welfare" - gets a little hinkier. Classic conservatives think that private charity is the best way to answer the religious call to care for the poor, while not using (or using less) taxpayer money to subsidize poverty, knowing that if you pay for something, you'll get more of it - and we are indeed paying for poverty. Democrats at their most idealistic think that it's society's duty to take care of the poor (and at their most cynical know they are buying a dependant class of long-term voters).

So what about subsidizing lousy government?

When Tim Pawlenty took office, he had to take some stern measures to balance the budget after the profligate irresponsibility of the Ventura years. One of the measures that drew the most flak was his cuts in aid to local governments. In Minnesota, the state imposes a relatively high tax load, and returns some of it to cities and counties; ostensibly, cities and counties are supposed to be able to tax less, while providing a high level of "service". It's BS, of course - it allows local government to live large without having to explain the taxes for the large living to its constituents. Pawlenty's cuts changed that, forcing local officials to have to go to their own constituents and be accountable for their own spending, without the power of the Legislature and the arrogant, all-stomping might of the Minnesota Department of Revenue behind them.

Now, as the Saint from Fraters notes, we've found another way to subsidize failure - by sending two million dollars in state money to Minneapolis to pay for more cops:

This is how dysfunctional political systems (and politicians) endure. Instead of allowing them to fail on their own momentum and forcing the citizens to experience the consequences of supporting them, someone else comes in (or is dragged in) to bail them out. So, instead of the Mayor and City Council being held accountable by the voters for not having enough money to pay for the police they need (and from having to ask themselves why crime is so high in their city in the first place), they can go merrily on spending millions on priorities such as grass covered city hall roofs and baseball stadiums and enforcing smoking bans and the Kyoto Protocol (not to mention having a genuine culture of corruption) with zero electoral consequences.

It is a law of economics, what you subsidize, you get more of. And it looks like the Twin Cities is going to have surplus of RT Rybak and Minneapolis liberalism for a long time to come.

Exactly.

The citizens of Minnesota keep bailing out Minneapolis, so they feel free to keep electing irresponsible hamsters like Sharon Sayles-Belton and RT Rybak to office.

If Minneapolis had to live or die by its own decisions, maybe they'd start electing grownups.

Posted by Mitch at April 20, 2006 06:18 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Can we just make Minneapolis a separate state? We could make it temporary, for a year or two, and then take them back. Just let them go long enough so they have to live on their own and see if their political ideology is at all affected.

Posted by: Joey at April 22, 2006 12:28 PM
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