Friday, February 11, 2005
Is effectiveness too much to ask before more is spent?
[Barbara Shelly, "Anti-tax crowd forgets common good," The Kansas City Star, 11 February 2005.]
KC Star columnist Barbara Shelly is tired of hearing about "The Frugal Family" and says we all need to pay more taxes:
The Frugal Family gets introduced in speeches and budget debates. It's that family that sits down at the kitchen table and tallies up its bills and its income. If expenses exceed income, the family decides what it needs to give up to live within its means.
Government — so the reasoning goes — must learn to do the same.
I respect that family. I've been that family. But I submit that the Frugal Family has its breaking point. When you've canceled cable and magazine subscriptions and forgone vacations three years in a row, and you still can't afford to fix the car or take the sick cat to the vet, it's probably time to increase your means.
I further suggest that when a state has to eliminate vital services for disabled children (Missouri) or continually shortchange its public schools (Kansas), that state needs to look for new revenue.
The Frugal Family would send somebody out to get a second job, or think about refinancing the home. Missouri and Kansas have more options, but the bottom line is that somebody is going to have to pay more taxes.
It's a hard thing to propose. In today's political climate, opposition to taxes has somehow become a value.
At some point in the past, Shelly contends, family values included not opposing tax increases. American history dating back to the Boston Tea Party would seem to disagree. People generally find it difficult to swallow any situation in which they are asked to pay additional taxes without any indication that the taxes they are already spending are being used most effectively. Shelly seems to acknowledge this in theory, but then goes on to imply that "good" programs are more important:
Government's responsibility is to use people's money wisely. It's also to provide for the common good.
The two need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed, it is problematic to suggest that regardless of outcomes, government programs deemed by some as beneficial to "the common good" should receive perpetual - if not perpetually increasing - support.
Medicaid is a prime example of this. Few would say the program is worthless, but many would say that it does not meet its objectives and costs far more than it should even if it did. Given that fact, is it fair to shame taxpayers and politicians who attempt to reform broken programs before throwing more of The Frugal Family's money at them? Incentives matter - there is little incentive to make positive change in a system that passes funds along without oversight.
Shelly ends the column with the following:
The state that refuses to pay for safe roads, quality schools and healthy citizens is a state that no family, not even the Frugals, will find appealing.
Research by Richard Vedder and others shows that Frugal Family members do tend to migrate based on tax burden. A better statement is: The state that spends taxpayer money on roads, schools and citizens without ensuring that roads are safe, schools are high-quality and citizens are healthy is a state that no family, especially the Frugals, will find appealing.
[Matthew Hisrich, "Additional Medicaid Spending is Irresponsible," The Flint Hills Center, 22 July 2004.]
[Barbara Shelly, "Anti-tax crowd forgets common good," The Kansas City Star, 11 February 2005.]
KC Star columnist Barbara Shelly is tired of hearing about "The Frugal Family" and says we all need to pay more taxes:
The Frugal Family gets introduced in speeches and budget debates. It's that family that sits down at the kitchen table and tallies up its bills and its income. If expenses exceed income, the family decides what it needs to give up to live within its means.
Government — so the reasoning goes — must learn to do the same.
I respect that family. I've been that family. But I submit that the Frugal Family has its breaking point. When you've canceled cable and magazine subscriptions and forgone vacations three years in a row, and you still can't afford to fix the car or take the sick cat to the vet, it's probably time to increase your means.
I further suggest that when a state has to eliminate vital services for disabled children (Missouri) or continually shortchange its public schools (Kansas), that state needs to look for new revenue.
The Frugal Family would send somebody out to get a second job, or think about refinancing the home. Missouri and Kansas have more options, but the bottom line is that somebody is going to have to pay more taxes.
It's a hard thing to propose. In today's political climate, opposition to taxes has somehow become a value.
At some point in the past, Shelly contends, family values included not opposing tax increases. American history dating back to the Boston Tea Party would seem to disagree. People generally find it difficult to swallow any situation in which they are asked to pay additional taxes without any indication that the taxes they are already spending are being used most effectively. Shelly seems to acknowledge this in theory, but then goes on to imply that "good" programs are more important:
Government's responsibility is to use people's money wisely. It's also to provide for the common good.
The two need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed, it is problematic to suggest that regardless of outcomes, government programs deemed by some as beneficial to "the common good" should receive perpetual - if not perpetually increasing - support.
Medicaid is a prime example of this. Few would say the program is worthless, but many would say that it does not meet its objectives and costs far more than it should even if it did. Given that fact, is it fair to shame taxpayers and politicians who attempt to reform broken programs before throwing more of The Frugal Family's money at them? Incentives matter - there is little incentive to make positive change in a system that passes funds along without oversight.
Shelly ends the column with the following:
The state that refuses to pay for safe roads, quality schools and healthy citizens is a state that no family, not even the Frugals, will find appealing.
Research by Richard Vedder and others shows that Frugal Family members do tend to migrate based on tax burden. A better statement is: The state that spends taxpayer money on roads, schools and citizens without ensuring that roads are safe, schools are high-quality and citizens are healthy is a state that no family, especially the Frugals, will find appealing.
[Matthew Hisrich, "Additional Medicaid Spending is Irresponsible," The Flint Hills Center, 22 July 2004.]
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