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One
lame-brained idea—no doubt, there will be
many—sure to see the light of day during the
coming session of the Virginia General Assembly will
be a move to put to referendum proposals that would
increase state taxes and/or state spending—on
anything.
“Let
the people decide!” proponents will shout with
huffed up indignation.
The
people of Virginia should reject this duck, this con
job, like the bob and weave that it surely is.
Patrick
McSweeney, a former chairman of the Republican Party
of Virginia, supports this idea. He said, writing in
Bacon's
Rebellion last week: “Voters should reject
politicians who promise to enact new ‘spending
commitments’ as if economic growth will continue
unabated.”
Patrick,
my friend, Ann Landers would tell you to “wake up
and smell the coffee.” You’ve got it exactly
backwards.
Do
you not see that government spending, that
government investment in the development of human
capital, that investment in societal
infrastructure--in education, transportation, health
care, research, law enforcement, the environment,
and on and on and on—is the very thing that spurs
unabated economic growth in the private sector?
You
don’t seriously think these record corporate
profits that are driving the so-called “surplus”
derive of their own unassisted effort and genius, do
you?
Name
one company that you think would enhance its
profitability if it had to build its own roads over
which to ships its goods, educate its own workforce,
discover, develop and manufacture the medicines
necessary to keep its workforce healthy, and provide
its own law enforcement and system of justice —
courts, penal institutions, and so on.
You
can’t do it. That company does not exist in
America.
No,
Patrick.
Voters
should reject politicians who do not understand the
linkage between government spending -- good,
measured, considered, opportunistic spending — and
prosperity in the private sector. This linkage is
real. It is causal. And it is profound.
It
works like this: We as individuals, and collectively
as companies, benefit enormously from the duties and
chores our government performs in our name. We
benefit individually and collectively when the
government undertakes to build roads and fund
universities.
We
benefit individually and collectively when the
government funds research that cures polio. We
benefit individually and collectively when the
government serves as the referee and arbiter in our
private disputes.
Of
course these things cost money. You think it costs
too much? Try doing it on your own. There are still
people in the world — scattered pockets of them --
trying to do just that. Generally, they’re
characterized as “tribes.”
Patrick,
you say: “Although funding goals are acceptable,
the legislature should abandon the very idea of
“spending commitments.”
You
can’t be serious. Abandon our historic spending
commitments to our children? To our schools? To our
universities? To our teachers? To transportation? To
our law enforcement officers? I think not.
On
the contrary, I believe very strongly that we should
reaffirm these commitments. That we should do more.
And, yes, that we should spend more.
I
say this, Patrick, with a firm belief that these
spending commitments come back to us with compounded
interest. These commitments, this foresight, comes
back to us in the form of better citizens, in a
better educated workforce, in safer, better
communities in which we can live, work and raise our
families and otherwise engage in pursuit of that
sense of being called ‘happiness.’
Patrick,
all of this is not to say that I don’t appreciate
your frustration with Richmond. I do. I not only
appreciate it, but I understand it. I do not believe
for one second though that the smart thing to do is
to straight jacket and handcuff those we elect to
represent us with supercilious constitutional
amendments.
The
thing is this: Government is, by design,
inefficient — and will always be — especially
democratic government. Some politicians will glibly
promise, in a swaggering tone, to run state
government ‘like a business’ when they get to
Richmond. They should be avoided like they have
something contagious. They do: stupidity. The last
thing we need is a government that “runs like a
business.”
Businesses
can -- and the good ones must -- subject their
products to severe quality control standards.
Businesses can, and the good ones must, discontinue
obsolete and otherwise undesirable product lines.
Businesses are governed by a “survival of the
fittest” law of the marketplace.
But
government must never be allowed to operate thusly.
Our goods are us. Our goods are people. We don’t
cull them. We don’t ‘seconds’ them. We don’t
discontinue them. Our efforts must be to ensure
survival — not of the fittest — but of the
weakest, the least among us. And that is as it
should be.
--October
17, 2005
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