A Stitch in Haste

...then let me take a moment, on tax day, to thank you for buying me a Second Avenue subway line with your tax dollars. Your federal tax dollars, totaling $1.3 billion.

Because apparently a new NYC subway line is -- somehow -- not just a public good but a federal public good, worthy of federal subsidization.

Somehow.

While most people will thank the politicians, I'll be one of the few who will thank those who really made it possible -- the people like you who are paying for it.

Maybe someday I can return the favor by funding a bridge to nowhere for you with my tax dollars. My federal tax dollars.

I'm sure the politicians can easily arrange that.

POST SCRIPT: Ditto for those of you who live elsewhere in New York State and who are chipping in $450 million of your state tax dollars.

Two of New York City's hackier politicians, Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Anthony Weiner, are getting all bug-eyed over the way Congress is (not) spending your tax dollars:

The hungry Asian longhorned beetle has turned more than 4,000 city trees into mulch, prompting officials to warn Sunday that Gotham could be stuck with a $2.25 billion bill unless the federal government loosens its purse strings.

That is, the same way lawmakers have done for Chicago, which has gained an upper hand in the fight against the pesky bugs with help from D.C. dollars.
...
Weiner said Sunday that he will introduce an amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill to increase federal anti-beetle funding for New York.

It's easy to declare a problem a "national crisis" when it means that federal funds will end up, literally, in your backyard.

Of course, the idea that Chicago should pay for Chicago's problems and New York should pay for New York's problems and that Washington should just leave everyone else's pocketbooks alone, never comes up. Go figure.

Why is anybody surprised?

The Department of Homeland Security yesterday slashed anti-terrorism money for Washington and New York, part of an immediately controversial decision to reduce grant funds for major urban areas in the Northeast while providing more to mid-size cities from Jacksonville to Sacramento.
...
Homeland Security's grant programs have drawn criticism from cities both large and small; many have felt slighted by what they maintained was a haphazard and unfair distribution plan. This year's round of grants was supposed to ensure that enough money goes to areas at highest risk of terrorist attack by employing risk scores, effectiveness tests and 17 "peer review" panels consisting of homeland security professionals from 47 states.

Even when you stay true to the (now totally dead and buried) principle of fiscal federalism — i.e., the (now totally dead and buried) view that federal taxes should pay for federal public goods while state & local taxes pay for state & local public goods, and never the twain shall meet — even then you cannot escape the Politics of Pull. Take military bases, for example. The military is a federal public good (ignoring Iraq for the moment), but you still have to decide where to build the bases. Would anyone dare suggest that the system for locating military bases is apolitical? Heck, even the politicians admitted that it was impossible to trust them with the decision-making when it can time to reap that alleged "peace dividend" and shut a handful of them down.

So nowadays it's not military bases but Homeland Security budgets. First of all, it's not entirely clear to me that such spending satisfies fiscal federalism: the Border Patrol is a federal public good, but are metal detectors at the Empire State Building? It seems to me that if New York City is going to reap the benefits of its unique status, then it is perfectly reasonable to expect it to bear the costs of protecting it from proximate threats. Stated differently, it's easy for the liberal triumvirate of Clinton, Schumer and Bloomberg to call New York a "national treasure" when it implies that the national fisc should therefore subsidize it.

But let's assume that the Empire State Building and other local landmarks are, somehow, federal public goods (or, if your prefer gobbledygook, "national treasures"). Precisely how do you decide whether the Brooklyn Bridge is "more important" than the Golden Gate Bridge, or that the Sears Tower is more worthy of federal tax dollars than the St. Louis Arch? There have been suggestions that Las Vegas is very high on the terrorists' agenda — anyone going to suggest that Utah Mormons pick up the tab to protect their lascivious neighbors at the Bellagio?

There is simply no objective way to "properly" allocate these monies. And even if there were, who truly believes that such a process could survive the Politics of Pull? Maybe there should be a Homeland Security subsidy budget — I think not. But even so, let's not lie to ourselves about the "right" way to spend such a budget. There is no right way — there is only the politicians' way.

More thoughts at Below the Beltway, Becker-Posner.

First you paid for my to-be-constructed Second Avenue Subway...

...and now you're paying for my new, to-be-purchased city buses:

New York City's bus service got a boost from an unlikely place Tuesday: an emergency $66 billion spending bill in Congress whose primary purpose was to pay for the war on terror and Hurricane Katrina rebuilding.

The measure, passed in the House, included some $132 million for new, cleaner city buses, among the other dollars it appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Because, of course, all our buses were wiped out by Hurricane Katrina (or, apparently, by Iraqi terrorists).

So the next time you're visiting, the bus fare's my treat (the least I can do, since you paid for the bus itself).

Oh, and remind me again how NYC got "cheated" out of Homeland Security spending?

...Then thanks for the flu money:

The city has received an $8.2 million grant from the federal government to prepare for a flu pandemic.

"We've already began using these resources to supply hospitals with ventilators and masks and to run educational campaigns," Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday before signing a resolution with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.

The federal government is also committing to provide guidance and technical assistance to local officials, including reviewing the city's plans for antiviral drugs.

So if you get the sniffles, be sure to visit New York and stop by one of our lovely hospitals. After all, you've already paid for it.

And remember: "from the federal government" is shyster shorthand for "from somebody else."

(I might make this an intermittent feature.)

Today's comment left elsewhere:

So solar is not now "cost-competitive with other forms of electricity"? We're going to spend money to waste money?

How utterly Bloomberg.

Incidentally, the money referenced is federal taxpayer money -- cf., this old post.