A Stitch in Haste

Recently I tried to explain that club goods are not public goods and therefore are inappropriate uses of taxpayer money. I chose as my illustration municipal golf courses and submitted the hardly controversial thesis that those who use a golf course — and only those who use it — should be the ones who actually pay for it.

It surprised me to learn that golf might not have been the best example for my predominantly male, educated, middle-class (or higher) audience. Too many commenters just couldn't divest themselves of the false notion that golf is somehow "different." Some invoked the expense of the sport; others the popularity.

I stick to my guns: municipal golf courses are an entirely improper government function. Demand creates its own supply. If there is a demand for a golf course (and no unduly burdensome government restrictions such as oppressive zoning), then private entrepreneurs will build one. The poor, meanwhile, can be given vouchers (the propriety of which would be a whole other blogpost).

But for those who need a less personally relevant example than golf, might I suggest instead the impropriety of — municipal water parks?

Everyone, it seems, wants a local water park.
...
Water parks are fun and a positive way for kids and families to spend time together.

Water parks, once built, are always a hit. Waseca's new outdoor water park has had higher use than expected. The same has been true of most parks opened in any city.

They are also expensive. The private sector can, in some cases, justify building a water park — particularly as part of a hotel project. But there are few cases where a large publicly available water park can be built and operated as a profitable private venture.

The proposed solution, you can easily foresee, is taxpayer subsidization. The pesky fact that some taxpayers might not actually want or be able to use a water park is blanked out (the sly difference, incidentally, between "everyone" and "everyone, it seems").

Soak yourself in that very wet reasoning: Water parks are "always a hit," but no so much a hit that enough people are actually willing to pay enough money to actually visit them? Water parks are such a "hit" — that we need to tax people against their will to provide them?

Could you imagine a politician or bureaucrat suggesting that Justin Timberlake concerts should be taxpayer-subsidized, because he's "always a hit"? Of course not — indeed it's usually the opposite argument: we supposedly need to subsidize the arts precisely because they're not "always a hit" (i.e., we need to give taxpayer money to crappy artists precisely because they're crappy; that too would be a whole other blogpost).

Water traps or water parks, it makes no difference: Those who partake of club goods should be the ones who pay for them. Leave the unwilling taxpayer out of it.

(Via Market Power.)