The poor as human shields for bad policy

Thomas Sowell:

Among the many rationales used to defend the welfare state, the most powerful is that it is necessary, in order to take care of the poor and the downtrodden. But the amount of money required to bring every poor person in the country above the official poverty line is a fraction of what is spent by government on the welfare state.

Put bluntly, the poor are in effect being used as human shields in the political wars over government spending, which extends far beyond anyone who could even plausibly be called poor.

Politicians will spend money wherever that is likely to increase their chances of getting re-elected. Of all the things that governments spend money on, none is further removed from fighting poverty than municipal golf courses.

Are the taxpayers being asked to support municipal golf courses so that the poor and the downtrodden can play? Not bloody likely.

San Francisco has six municipal golf courses -- and they are losing money. Now there is all sorts of hand-wringing over what to do about it.

An economist might see this as a non-problem. If the golf courses are losing money, then get rid of them. Given San Francisco's sky high land prices, selling the land that the golf courses are on would bring in millions, if not billions, of dollars.

But such advice is why so few economists get elected to political office.

A politician has to be all things to all people -- a friend of the golfers, a protector of the workers who maintain the golf courses, and of course a believer in mother and apple pie.

Even the suggestion that the golf courses might be turned over to some private operator of golf courses has caused opposition. One golfer declared: "Privatization would raise greens fees. Nobody could afford it."

...

This is one reason why things are so expensive in San Francisco. I remember when my law partner and I were walking down the street in San Francisco during a break in a deposition and he saw an old guy carrying his bag of clubs and said, "A little bit off the fairway, aren't you pops?" The guy responded with a string of obscenities. Golf is apparently no joking matter there.

Sowell has offered two excellent solutions to San Francisco's problem, but it turns out their problem is with the golfing constituents.