RALEIGH — Presented with a legitimate problem — crowded animal shelters and irresponsible pet owners who won’t spay or neuter their animals — state lawmakers in Raleigh were presented by a study commission with an illegitimate solution, a new tax on pet foods to subsidize sterilization. It looks like the General Assembly is going to take a pass on the idea. What do you know: perhaps a old dog can learn new tricks.
Some argue that the lack of action on the bill stems from a sort of election-year taxaphobia. But an aversion to sticking the citizens of North Carolina with ever-higher bills for government expansion is not a disease, and unfortunately the sentiment is not as widespread as some allege. Politicians do indeed raise taxes in election years when they think they can get away with it.
Several counties across the state are considering tax hikes in 2004 even though some of their members will face the voters in November. And in 2002, both the General Assembly and local politicians approved tax hikes to close budget gaps ripped open because of past reckless spending. Some of these incumbents subsequently were put out to the political pasture in November, much to their surprise, but others escaped the voters’ ire by blaming other levels of government or past politicians for their predicament.
I suspect that the real reason state lawmakers have turned up their collective nose at the pet-food tax is that it reeked of good intentions gone horrible awry. Members of the study commission obviously thought that imposing a tax on pet owners in order to raise funds for the animal-control problem makes some kind of sense, something like the earmarking of gasoline taxes for highway construction and maintenance. But the two cases are entirely dissimilar. Highway users pay in rough proportion (accounting for differences in gas mileage) to how much they consume the service of the state roadways. To put it another way, they pay in rough proportion to the cost they impose on the system by traversing it.
But responsible pet owners put no stress on the animal-control system precisely because they have already sterilized their animals or find proper homes for their progeny. There is no logical connection between their consumption of pet foods and the need for animal control. It is also debatable whether animal control is a true public good in the sense that unlimited-access highways are. The latter are public goods because it is extremely costly to attempt to exclude non-payers from their use. I think that animal control may be considered a public good to the extent that strays and even diseased animals can wander across property lines and put others’ pets, property, or solitude at risk. If I’m right, though, and it is impossible to trace the animals in question back to their irresponsible owners to obtain compensation, then general tax revenue should be used to finance such services, not taxes on selected households and businesses that purchase pet food.
A road system is essentially a business for which effective pricing has yet to be developed that does not require governmental enforcement. Earmarked taxes are an appropriate financing vehicle for it. Among public services, animal control is, well, a different breed altogether.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.