RALEIGH — In for a pound, in for a penny, according to the organizers of the disappointing “Festival of Flight” event in Fayetteville a while back.
As has been previously reported, the festival celebrating the centennial of the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk ended up drawing far fewer visitors than expected. That left a number of vendors holding the bag for nearly $300,000. So far, the five-member executive committee have managed to send a token check of a few hundred dollars to each vendor while trying to close the gap with private contributions. Now, the board is also seeking a bailout from city, county, and even state taxpayers.
The Fayetteville Observer reports that city officials, at least, are inclined to kick the problem upstairs. City Manager Roger Stancil told the newspaper that he will not recommend that the council appropriate funds to the cash-stripped festival. “My first recommendation is that the City Council send a letter to the state that they support this festival as they have others,” Stancil said.
By others, he particularly means the upcoming festivities at Kitty Hawk. The First Flight Centennial Commission and related activities have received state appropriations since the mid-1990s. The total tab now reportedly comes to $5.1 million. What Stancil is arguing is that if taxpayers from Asheville to Wilmington and everywhere in between were appropriately coerced to funding a big party in Dare County that few of them will attend or even notice, why shouldn’t Fayetteville’s underwhelming event get similarly generous treatment?
Why not indeed? The problem with opening the state government’s purse to localities, nonprofits, and activities far afield from the state’s core functions is that there is little rational basis for closing it, again. Sure, the Wright brothers actually flew their plane on the Outer Banks, and in December, so a commemoration in Fayetteville in May might seem a little less of a natural “fit.” But the Festival of Flight folks aren’t asking for $5 million. They’ll take a small percentage of that, I’m sure. Surely it would be impossible to argue that the First Flight Centennial event is worth a lot to state taxpayers but the Festival of Flight is worth absolutely nothing.
Naturally, advocates of all this subsidy bunkum (a good North Carolina term, by the way) will say that honoring the Wrights is an “investment” in the state’s all-important tourism industry. But government does not exist to play venture capitalist or press agent for a private business or industry. Just to clarify matters, many if not most attendees of such events will be from North Carolina. Whatever dollars they will spend at events, at hotels, at restaurants, and at other attractions is money they would have spent in some other way. It is both wrong and economically deleterious to force the owners of the businesses that will lose revenue from the tourists in order to subsidize the latter’s recreation.
Fayetteville officials and event organizers are laying a guilt trip on state government. And you know what, state policymakers should feel guilty — but not for overlooking the Fayetteville Festival of Flight in their funding schemes. They should feel guilty for indulging in such subsidy scheming at all when there are bonafide state needs and perpetual state budget deficits to worry about. I know I’ve stated this before, but if North Carolina politicians can’t distinguish the relative importance of imprisoning criminals and partying on the beach, there is no hope for rational decisions in Raleigh.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.