Michael Lissack Voters in Broward County, Florida are asked to choose between paying debt service on a facility that opponents claim should be closed and shutting the facility down. Major New York financial institutions fund the resulting political campaigns. An entire industry springs into existence as each new Federal tax revision creates “arbitrage” opportunities for state and local governments or their friends. Proponents of high speed rail systems fail to launch anything but pilot programs because needed tax-exempt bonding authority is denied by Congress. At the same time, Congress approves the use of tax-exempt bonds for building baseball stadiums and convention centers throughout the United States. Puerto Rico lobbies Congress to preserve a tax-exemption for its industry -- industry that would otherwise be located somewhere in the fifty states. Minnesota lawmakers give a $100 million plus bailout to a stricken airline. Seven states compete for the right to offer more than $50 million of subsidies to a German car maker. Wealthy charitable institutions operate multi-million dollar businesses and hide from the IRS under the guise of “non-profit.” Their executives take home hundred thousand dollar plus sal- aries, housing allowances, and cars. The business profits go untaxed. The Summer of 2002 sees government talking about subsidies for Amtrak (trains that serve few passengers at a cost greater than renting each of them a limo), the Postal Service, dairy farmers, and embattled trade union industries. The dates are a decade later and the names of the entities slightly different but the theft and waste remain. What is going on here? How did all this skimming of the public interest begin to take place? Where will it lead? If you are thinking “expose and scandal,” well, yes, but the perpetrators are us. This is not the story of greedy politicians and bureaucrats who are literally stealing from the public to line their pockets. This is a far more insidious tale. It is a tale about public officials making decisions that cost you and me -- decisions we don’t want them to make for us -- decisions we would not make for ourselves. The costs that we bear: money, missed opportunities, and more, as the result of these decisions are no different than if a robber had
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