RALEIGH – There is a big difference between public priorities and private priorities. That is to say, when wise governmental bodies choose not to fund particular functions, that means only that these functions did not make the priority list for the proper use of taxpayer dollars. It doesn’t mean the functions are not important, beneficial, or worthy of voluntary support.
Case in point today is local-government expenditure on parks and recreation. The Charlotte Observer reports that community organizations in Mecklenburg County are seeking to attract public dollars to park improvements by offering to put up some private money as part of the deal. One group wants a lighted soccer field. Another desires a lacrosse complex. A third seeks to make playing-field improvements for its Little League programs.
While it’s good to see private money mingled in with the taxpayer dollars, it’s not good to see county officials spending time and resources on these programs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, like many other fast-growing urban districts, faces major challenges in accommodating traffic growth and surging school enrollment. Schools and roads surely top the list of priorities (along with, in the Queen City, crime-fighting). Scarce taxpayer dollars need to be expended first on these priorities, and only after sufficiency directed (if ever) to recreation.
As it happens, I’m at a point in life where recreational opportunities for young people top my personal list of private priorities. For one thing, my own kids are at the age where I’ve been shopping around for camps, classes, and team sports to fill their evenings, weekends, and summers. And later this week, a performing-arts program for Triangle teens with which I’ve been involved since its inception 16 years ago, the creatively titled Teen Arts Program, will begin its two-week camp. Housed over its lifespan in a variety of venues – a community theater, a university, and two private schools – TAP is a unique program that offers teens the opportunity to perform an original musical written specifically for them while learning all aspects of the theater experience.
TAP also competes for students with a burgeoning array of Triangle-area options, be they artistic or athletic. The competition is fierce, and in some cases unfortunately tipped in favor of some programs that receive implicit subsidy from taxpayers through affiliations with government departments or institutions. It would be one thing if needy students received direct assistance with which to choose programs that best met their needs and aspirations – purely private funding would still be superior, but at least if the subsidy were means-tested and choice-based there would be less bias in the system. But that’s not reality, and probably will never be.
The limited-government case for a public-sector role in education concerns the need to ensure a base level of schooling in a self-governing republic. It is not predicated on training young people to gain employment, or improving their physical health, or tapping their creative talents. Recreational and summertime programs do not meet this test. They are not a proper use of money taxed forcibly from the people who earned it.
They are, however, a very proper – and may I say, very welcome – use of money given freely by the people who earned it. If local government set the right priorities here, meaning the use of tax dollars for legitimate functions, I submit that we would be amazed and pleased at the outpouring of private initiative, volunteerism, and philanthropy that would follow. Let’s try persuasion and inspiration, not compulsion.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.