Sustainable Budgets First, Sustainable Farms Second (or 152nd)

I went to hear Rob Astorino's pitch for his new budget last night. It includes a modest 1% decrease in spending, but you'd think it was 50% from all the caterwauling.

The nature of these events is that interest groups show up in force with the implicit (sometimes explicit) threat of, "continue to support my pet interest or we will seek to throw you out of office."

My favorite last night was sustainable farming. Did you know that Westchester County was in the farming business? Yes, that's right, in the middle of the biggest fiscal crisis we have ever known, and with the highest taxes in the nation, we are funding "sustainable farming" efforts. And these folks, and others, will not let you cut a red cent without fighting you every step of the way.

That's the way it works, and why we have to stop creating new government initiatives from Washington down to Bedford: because they never go away. They get in the faces of politicians at every opportunity, giving the illusion of broad popular support. Meanwhile, the diffuse interests of the taxpayers are seldom communicated in the same manner. No one ever specifically shows up to say they oppose spending 0.1% of the budget on sustainable farming.

Mind you, most of the spending in question will sound just wonderful. Perhaps you really like the idea of funding sustainable farming. But another way to think of this is to imagine we didn't have the program and someone came along and proposed it. How would you fund it? Not with tax receipts, because Westchester takes in far less than it spends already. That leaves debt. Would you, today, take on even more county debt to fund a new initiative on sustainable farming?

What these folks have to start understanding is that there are some things (most things, actually) where the government should play no role. If your project truly has merit, raise the money privately. We live in the most generous nation in the world. If you can't, well perhaps your idea doesn't have the merit you think it does, and so you shouldn't expect taxpayers to pick up the bill.