Going Through Taxpayer Dollars Like They're Made Of Melted Butter
Steven Malanga writes in the WSJ about how in love politicians are at using our taxpayer dollars to build convention centers that go empty:
For two decades, America's convention center business has been declining, resulting in a nationwide surplus of empty meeting facilities, struggling convention halls and vacant hotel rooms. How have governments responded to this glut? By building more convention centers, of course, financed by debt backed by new taxes and fees on already struggling taxpayers...."The whole thing is a racket," Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby recently observed. "Once again the politicos will expand their empire. Once again crony capitalism will enrich a handful of wired business operators. And once again Joe and Jane Taxpayer will pay through the nose. How many times must we see this movie before we finally shut it off?"
...The surest sign that taxpayers should be leery of such public investments is that officials have changed their sales pitch. Convention and meeting centers shouldn't be judged, they now say, by how many hotel rooms, restaurants, and local attractions they help fill. That's "narrow-minded thinking," said James Rooney of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority this year. Instead, as Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has said, expanding a convention center can "demonstrate to the world that we have unlimited confidence in our city and what it can do, not only as a convention destination but as the center of the most important trends in hospitality, science, health and education."
This new metric--a city's amorphous brand value--is little more than a convenient way to ignore the failure of publicly sponsored facilities to live up to exaggerated projections. But as far as city officials are concerned, that failure is nothing that hundreds of millions more in taxpayer dollars can't fix.
Conveniently, the people who want to build these convention centers are the richest and most connected. So...just speculating here...that it's more self-interest on the part of politicians than anything else.
I know...there's a shocker of a thought. Anybody out there still think government is about giving you a better life?
"Anybody out there still think government is about giving you a better life?"
I believe it with all my heart. Especially after learning my city's school district mis printed textbooks 3 times. Hundreds of them. The 3rd time they couldn't be used because they had printed them in hardback and the kids needed them in paperback. Sooo they decided to print them again because they just couldn't be used.
Purplepen at December 31, 2011 8:15 AM
@:"Anybody out there still think government is about giving you a better life?"
@Purplepen: "I believe it with all my heart. Especially after learning my city's school district mis printed textbooks 3 times. Hundreds of them. The 3rd time they couldn't be used because they had printed them in hardback and the kids needed them in paperback. Sooo they decided to print them again because they just couldn't be used."
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You're wrong, purplepen. The government's responsibility is to safeguard our freedom and liberty, and our right to pursue happiness, not a guarantee to obtain it. Getting a better life is up to us. A government that tries to create a utopia, a heaven on earth, is more likely to create a hell on earth.
One of the dangerous things about freedom is that people can enjoy it without understanding it, and because they don't understand it they too readily will vote it away in the name of some noble sounding cause.
For example, in talking about a better life, in your own words, "with all your heart", believed it was not only a government responsibility, you immediately associated it with a school districts incompetence over textbooks.
The votes of good people are too easily manipulated to vote away freedom in the name of some noble sounding cause. The right to pursue happiness is confused with voting to use the resources of others and the power of government.
Trust at December 31, 2011 9:16 AM
The branding of cities concept has been around for 30 years, and hasn't succeeded yet. Therefore, politicians will keep at it until it does work. The concept is sound, it just hasn't been presented right yet. Or the public is too dumb to comprehend.
Michael Z. Williamson at December 31, 2011 9:31 AM
Negative economic results from sports stadiums, professional sports teams, and arts centers
10/08/11 - Cato by David Boaz
Andrew_M_Garland at December 31, 2011 10:37 AM
Trust,
I think Purplepen forgot to enclose the post with the semi-required <Sarcasm></Sarcasm> tags.
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I want less government. I want it burned back to a strict Constitutional level.
Get rid of the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Interior, HUD, and DHS. Severely roll back the EPA, HHS, USDA, DOT.
Some of the others need to exist, such as the FCC, but only to de-conflict frequencies, not censor the content.
There was a series of videos talking about deleting many of the letters out of the alphabet soup our federal government. I think it was Milton Friedman. If we could hack back the government a lot of our other problems would go away.
Jim P. at December 31, 2011 12:54 PM
@Jim P.:"I think Purplepen forgot to enclose the post with the semi-required tags."
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If that is the case, I offer purplepen my apologies. However, the "believe it with all my heart" is a common sentiment so one can see where it could have been taken seriously even if intended to be a joke.
Trust at December 31, 2011 1:05 PM
However, the "believe it with all my heart" is a common sentiment so one can see where it could have been taken seriously even if intended to be a joke.
Only if one didn't bother to read the rest of her post.
Astra at December 31, 2011 3:11 PM
Purp's a sister
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 31, 2011 6:47 PM
@Asta: "Only if one didn't bother to read the rest of her post."
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Not necessarily. There are more than a few people who think education is the most important thing government does.
Trust at December 31, 2011 11:52 PM
One problem is that there are a few cities, like Salt Lake City, where private/public partnerships with convention centers have been very successful. A big difference is that those in charge never saw this as anything but a way to fill "hotel rooms, restaurants, and local attractions".
Joe at January 1, 2012 10:58 AM
Name a citty other than the Mormon Mecca gaurenteed to have people fly in from around the world twice a year every year
lujlp at January 2, 2012 12:07 PM
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