RALEIGH – Even in the midst of deep recession and yawning budget deficits, North Carolina governments still have a tendency to spend taxpayer money foolishly. Consider the case of municipal golf courses.
In recent years, taxpayers in many North Carolina communities have been compelled to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars subsidizing city-owned golf courses that compete with private ones. While most subsidy schemes are problematic, it is particularly galling to be redistributing money from taxpayers to relatively affluent golfers.
In Asheville, the municipal course lost money for years. Reportedly, the city council and City Manager Gary Jackson have finally set up the golf course with an Enterprise Fund, so that it will no longer be able to dip into general revenues to cover operating deficits. Asheville taxpayers have every reason to be skeptical of the promise given what the city’s Parks and Recreational Advisory Board just decided to do – exempt a three-day tournament from course fees after one of the tournament sponsors dropped out at the last minute.
Sponsorship deals fall through all the time. In most business ventures, a lost of customers, sponsors, or investors must lead to cutbacks, postponement, or cancellation. These outcomes may be unfortunate but they do not justify compelling innocent bystanders to make up the difference.
Jackson says he’s reviewing the advisory board’s decision. Perhaps he will recommend that the city council overturn it. Still, these kinds of conflicts will recur as long as Asheville remains in the golf-course business. It should exit that business as soon as possible.
More broadly, North Carolina public officials need to remind themselves why we have governments in the first place. Governments don’t exist merely to redistribute income from those currently out of power to those currently in power. They don’t exist to ensure that certain programs, projects, or attractions live on regardless of the extent of voluntary patronage. Government don’t exist to make sure people have something to do in their spare time.
Governments exists to protect our natural rights and provide certain basic public services that, for technical reasons, cannot efficiently be provided through voluntary exchange. Golfing will never meet that test. It is a straightforward matter to charge golfers for the use of a course. There are no free riders or significant externalities to take care of.
Every dollar that local governments expend on leisure and recreational programs is a dollar that can’t be used to fund true public services. It’s a dollar that should have been left in the wallet of the person who originally earned, to be used as that person sees fit.
Perhaps she will go golfing. Perhaps not. As I’ve observed before, public policy outcomes would be tremendously improved if North Carolinians followed a tried-and-true rule: Mind your own business.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation