State of Crisis
Whatever President Bush says about the state of the union tonight, the states in the union appear to be in very bad shape. State governments spent like crazy in the 90's and the bills are coming due.
Today Oregon voters face a referendum on whether to raise taxes or cut spending. A recent survey shows them evenly split.
But times aren't so tough to discourage baseball fans in Portland from seeking a few million dollars to attract a major league team and build a public stadium.
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I don’t see very many conservatives and libertarians supporting Corporate Pork.
It is mainly the usual suspects (tax&Spend liberals) who support it for “job creation”
And frankly I don’t buy the “Corporations recieve welfare, so why not also raise taxes to pay for poor welfare moms…” either. Theft is theft.
Of course this is Marxabalony updated for the 21st Century — the poor welfare mom is oppresed by the evil “State Capitalists”, so she should get her cut of the stolen loot too.
Humbug to that!
It is simple moral hazard. Politicians need votes to remain in office, so they buy the votes by spending.
My question is what individual states do when they bury themselves in debt. The Federal Govt has the Federal Reserve, so they can simply inflate the money supply to fink out of their debts.
What can states do? Declare Chapter 11? Can the Federal Government legally bail out a State government?
We have to be careful about Corporate Welfare like Pork for baseball teams.
This kind of Pork is very tempting for conservatives & libertarians.
“The government is going to take your money anyway and pass it out as Welfare so they might as well pass it out as Welfare to a nice Republican baseball team owner instead of an unwed mother.”
You’d have to give every Welfare Mother from East Palo Alto to Bed-Stuy a Cadillac to equal the amount of Welfare that taxpayers have paid to the NFL, NBA, MLB & NHL.