Build It and They Will Pay
7th January 2011
The problem with government planners is that a lot of what they ‘know’ ain’t so.
The flaw is this: Most of the benefits don’t accrue to those who bear the costs. So the creation of a park causes a rise in the value of the land around it? So what? If I don’t own some of that land, all I get out of it, except for an occasional visit to the park if it’s close to me, is a higher tax bill.
This is the same logic behind public schools: Proponents say that public education leads to an informed citizenry and Better Lives for All. Oh, really? I don’t have kids; why am I obliged to pay for educating someone else’s? My parents were taxed to support public education, but, desiring a decent education for their children (which local public schools, even then, did not provide), sent them to parochial schools, thus paying twice for the same thing.
And what ‘general benefit’ accrues from having the half of the population that are below average in intelligence — and remember, by definition half of the population is below average in intelligence — educated beyond basic literacy and numeracy? Anything that a 90-IQ person is going to be able to do won’t require more than an 8th-grade education (although, granted, graduating from 8th grade these days doesn’t even guarantee that). Putting them through high school, much less college, is just pissing away the taxpayers’ money.
As the cited article illustrates, the people who mostly benefit from public schemes are the ‘bootleggers’ (those who benefit directly — like teachers) and ‘Baptists’ (those who get to feel good about themselves — typically ‘progressives’ and other self-righteous do-gooders). A pox on both of them, I say.