Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Hospitality on the Taxpayers’ Dime

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

John Sugg writes in Reason magazine that southern states are leading the way in doling out incentives to lure businesses:

Consider three deals finalized in 1995, all of them in North Carolina. This End Up, a furniture manufacturer, accepted $230,000 and other incentives from the state for a new plant near Fayetteville that would employ 200 people; then it closed a Raleigh plant that employed 150. Quaker Oats received $98,000 for a new 98-worker plant near Asheville; then it closed another North Carolina operation where 70 people worked. Seffi Industries took $300,000 and promised to create 300 new jobs. It not only failed to open a new plant or hire a single new person but a few months later went out of business altogether.
Trendy businesses—particularly technology firms—have the greatest leverage in demanding government subsidies. In February, for example, biofuel manufacturer Range Fuels, based on lit?tle more than its word that it could deliver a economically competitive product, was offered $6 million in state cash, a 97-acre tract in central Georgia, and a set of tax abatements. At best, the company will employ 70 people.

Other beneficiaries of business welfare in??clude low-tech factories in the mid-South; call centers in the Tampa Bay area; auto manufacturers in Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia; and biotech firms in Florida and North Carolina. Publicly financed sports stadiums are common across the nation, and the South is no exception. Tampa built Raymond James Stadium for the Buccaneers a decade ago as part of a deal that will divert $1 billion in taxpayer money to team owner Malcolm Glazer over 30 years. Glazer, in a style common to team owners, threatened to move the football team if he didn’t get a new stadium. To win voter approval for a bond issue to finance the project, city officials attached it to a referendum providing money to alleviate crowding in the city’s schools. The stadium was built long before most of the new schools.

My libertarian impulse is to look at such giveaways as just another example of graft, and Sugg goes on to make the argument that incentives can lead to corruption, though it is not exactly widespread (as far as I know).

The one example he cites that really got me, though, was the money chase for the NASCAR hall of fame. Virginia was in the thick of that race, too, with promises to give NASCAR millions of dollars (including a “large taxpayer investment”) if only they would locate the Hall in Henrico.

While the bid wasn’t accepted, the willingness of state and local government to toss around taxpayer funds for big business prizes still seems to be the preferred magic bullet in economic development. Sugg’s interviews people who say that it’s not the incentives that matter most, but the quality of the workforce, infrastructure and the general business climate. That’s where the attention (and the money) ought to be spent.

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28 responses to “Hospitality on the Taxpayers’ Dime”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    First, the examples from North Carolina involved very modest sums indeed. Good grief. It is the multi-million dollar deals and tax breaks that ought to raise the ire. A couple hundred grand?

    Second, the main incentive Virginia offers IS workforce training. The cash programs are limited, usually must have a local component and strict performance measures require that the money be repaid if the deal collapses. Sometimes it doesn’t happen but the effort is made — its not just handed out willynilly.

    Third, all that needs to happen is that the states need to get together and agree to stop doing it to each other. Or the courts need to rule that some of these incentives are unfair to existing businesses or even a form of “taking” — that would bring it to a halt. Then the effort would be made to set up regulatory and tax climates and invest in education and infrastruture for everyone’s benefit.

  2. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    For any locality – there are two ways to increase revenues without increasing taxes:

    1. – having folks outside of your jurisdiction come and buy something from a business located inside of your jurisdiction.

    2. – have a business that produces things that it sells outside of your jurisdiction locate it business within your jursidiction.

    Businesses that sell products (and collect a tax) to folks within the same jurisdiction are not producting net revenues; instead they merely are collecting more taxes of the same residents that already live in that jurisdiction – for that local jurisdiction.

    In other words, instead of property taxes, the businesses are collecting additional sales taxes from the same residents of the jurisdiction. It’a an additional tax.

    Only when a product is sold to someone outside of that jurisdiction is a net increase obtained.

    So – localities compete for this kind of net increase – they are essentially willing to offer a “discount” or, in effect “share” the new revenues with any business that is willing to locate inside of their jurisdiction.

    Almost all local jurisdictions, States and even this country offer incentives to bring in businesses that will increase their bottom line.

    It’s a competition in a market.

    Each locality has to decide if the additional dollars are worth the acommodations (such as infrastructure) that have to be made to attract the business.

    If one considers new infrastructure to attract new business as an “investment”, then one could also consider other “incentives” also as an investment.

    or have I got this all balled up?

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The South has long been way too willing to get into bed with any industry willing to show interest in locating a factory nearby. This mindset dates back years when the South had to covercome a reputation for badly educated workforces, racism and community and business leaders far too willing to exploit the lack of unions and an obliging labor force.
    This is the South of yesteryear, however. Social conditions have improved dramatically and economic development authorities ought to act accoridngly. They don’t have to prostitute themselves but, as noted by someone else on this blog, it will take a united, coordinated effort to end the gravy train.
    Meanwhile, the South must be selective about what kinds of industries it wants. It needs ones that are sustainable and aren’t going to slink off to Guatemala or Malayasia afrter a bad quarter.

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I’m just back from two trips – one to Whiteville, NC and another to Luke, Md.

    As my custom.. I always ask myself – “why is this place here”
    and how do the folks here sustain themselves and their families.

    When one travels to Luke, they see a river (much less polluted nowdays) that receives large amounts of effluent from a paper plant plus mountains and hillsides denuded of trees for pulp wood (for the plant) plus strip mines to extract coal.

    In addition – there is a big dam built there at taxpayers expense – to meter out clean water to mix with the plant’s effluent so that it is diluted enough for the plant to continue to operate.

    It’s easy on first blush to condemn the damage to the enviroment and the taxpayer subsidy – but not so easy to figure out what the folks who live there could do to provide shelter for their kids and food on the table if those extraction industries were forced out.

    Folks who can’t heat their homes nor feed their kids surrounded by pristine mountains… is not sustainable either.

    Ditto with respect to small hamlets throughout rual N.C. … as you travel across NC, you run into dozens, perhaps hundreds of hamlets whose main existence seems to be because of small textile-type plants – many.. suprisingly with no front sign identifying the company.. but cars in the parking lot of obviously active plants…

    Recently, many areas in the South have made huge incentives to attract Mercedes, Toyota, Hundai, etc… many, if not most – non-union and …. some deals, I understand which may take decades for the state to break even on the incentives.

    Why?

    It’s no secret – they want these jobs rather than the extraction industries and these anonymous plants that can and do close down in a heartbeat as they move overseas.

    It’s all about jobs – good quality, less polluting … sustainable jobs.

    Are they that different from NoVa and their similiar appetite for bringing in more businesses even if it also results in more commuting pollution?

    I think the only thing one might be able to say about the South is that they were a little late in realizing that some kinds of traditional South jobs that were going to be lost anyhow… could be replaced with high tech and modern manufacturing jobs and they were willing to outcompete other places for those jobs.

    side note: in many of these deals and as noted in a previous post – part of the incentive is local education and training for the workforce … hmmm… I wonder if the state would have been willing to do that for the locals if Toyota had decide NOT to locate there?

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Businesses that sell products (and collect a tax) to folks within the same jurisdiction are not producting net revenues; instead they merely are collecting more taxes of the same residents that already live in that jurisdiction – for that local jurisdiction.

    In other words, instead of property taxes, the businesses are collecting additional sales taxes from the same residents of the jurisdiction. It’a an additional tax.”

    Not sure I agree.

    I run a business out of my home and I collect zero dollars in local sales tax for my local government. The only industries where I live that collect a local sales tax are restaurants and hotels….there might be a few others but those are the main two.

    The tax I pay to my locality is in the form of a business license. The rate is based on my operations gross revenues. The higher my gross revenues the more my business license costs the next year….so MY BUSINESS pays the tax for the service that another citizen chooses to buy…..the buyer really doesn’t pay any tax. Raising my prices doesn’t cover the tax….it just increases my gross revenues which increases the cost of my business license.

    Oh, there’s also a tax on tools and equipment that I must pay to my locality…sure some tools and equipment depreciates but it is normally replaced by newer equipment after a few years.

    I am not positive but I think many localities “attract” large new businesses by bargaining w/ them about how much they will pay for a business license as well as their tools and equipment tax…..among other things.

    -gold_h2o

  6. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I agree, if there is no sales tax on a good or service and instead there is a BPOL.

    But I guess what I was trying to point out is that local officials often make the claim that new commercial businesses help offset taxes and keep property taxes from going up and, in turn, cite that as a reason to encourage commercial retail.

    Commercial retail that sells primarily to people in the same jursidiction AND is collecting a sales tax is, in fact, collecting additional taxes from the same citizens that are already paying property taxes.

    Only if the Commercial retail is selling products/services to folks outside of that jurisdiction, do they truly generate net revenues for the jurisdiction.

    This is important to adjacent localities in an urbanizing region because if they fail to provide “in-house” commercial retail, their own residents will shop outside of the jurisdiction and, in effect, help offset the taxes of citizens in the adjacent localities.

    I’ll admit ignorance on small businesses especially those that sell goods and services that do not have a sales tax and the business only pays a BPOL.

    I do know that the bigger chains can and do choose in some cases where to locate within a region based on what localities have a BPOL and which ones don’t but customer demographics can also drive location decisions as much or more.

    But I stick to the basic point which is if a business locates within a given jurisdiction AND collects a sales tax or equivalent and most of the customers live within that same jurisdiction that the sales tax amounts to an additional tax paid for by residents rather than it functioning as an offset to property taxes.

  7. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    At least the localities mentioned in the article and related blog post are trying to create economic development. They are trying to move the jobs to the population which raises standards of living, reduces commuting polluting and decreases the subsidy required from ubganizing localities to non-urban localities.

    Maybe the governemnt botched the efforts described in the article but at least they are trying.

    Localities must seek the middle ground.

    Overdevelopment is a problem, so is underdevelopment.

    Larry Gross says, “It’s easy on first blush to condemn the damage to the enviroment and the taxpayer subsidy – but not so easy to figure out what the folks who live there could do to provide shelter for their kids and food on the table if those extraction industries were forced out.”.

    Yes – exactly. Not so easy at all to see what the local residents should do. That questions gets even more difficult when large tracts of land in scenic rural areas are purchased and put into conservation easements in perpetuity. In that situation it’s no longer a question of extraction industries vs. manufacturing. Rather, it’s a question of low to minimum wage service support jobs or moving away from the area where you have lived all your life to find a job.

    We must find a middle ground. No one extreme answer works in any locale.

  8. rodger provo Avatar
    rodger provo

    The week Not Larry Sabato has found
    a sense of civility by featuring a
    picture of the evening vigil at Va Tech and publishing the poem read by a professor there at the end of
    the memorial convocation, after the
    horrible events on that campus on
    Monday.

    You have missed an opportunity this
    week to do the same.

    In coming weeks, Virginia, after the victims’ funerals and burials
    have taken place, will need to have a frank discussion about our gun laws and mental health programs.

    We owe it to those who lost their sons and daughters, fathers and mothers on Monday to address those
    issues.

    Postings about economic development
    programs, the W & M cross issue, the status of the Chesapeake Bay, the Virginia Conservation Network, a tattoo parlor fight, cleaning up
    a creek near Richmond, saving our
    countryside, Metro’s extension out
    to Dulles, elementary school kids
    tackling growth issues and growth
    issues in Arlington County this week seem to be off the mark to me.

    Policy junkies take a break.

    There are some real issues facing Virginia resulting from the Va Tech
    event we need to resolve.

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Rodger Provo is entirely on the mark with his comments. But consider the others on this blog — notably James Aticus Bowden. When one commentator broached the issue of gun control, Bowden ordered the blogger to “just shut up.”
    It is very hard to have discussions when rude ideologues such as Bowden try to shout everyone down.

  10. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    A question.

    Was the creation of Shennandoah Park – a … wrongheaded mistake?

    this is the quandry…. no?

  11. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Rodger, I guess I’m damned if say something, damned if I don’t. I was deliberately waiting a decent interval before posting on the policy ramifications of the VT horror. Today is a day of mourning. Once this day is over, I’ll jump into it.

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Jim Bacon,
    There is something disingenuous about your post. The real reason you conservatives want to wait for a “decent interval” (?!) to discuss VT ramifactions is that you are afraid of any such discussion. You conservatives simply cannot support your gun-happy views any more. No longer can you peeople paint yourself as “patriots” by backing the guns-for-everyone approach.
    The facts are very, very clear: A deranged young man identified as having severe metal issues somehow slipped through Virginia’s mental health system. Because of the state’s lax gun laws, he was able to legally buy two automatic pistols and lots and lots of ammo. No one said a damned thing.
    You conservatives don’t want to say a damned thing either because at the moment it is a debate you can’t win.
    So, if you have your way, critically important issues will be swept under the rug and NOTHING will happen just as it didn’t after Columbine.
    And this is why you conservatives talk about side issues while hiding behind this utterly phony veil of a “decent interval.” If you want to truly honor the VT dead, you will find the guts to discuss the issues and right now is the best time.
    Please, please spare us your cheap piety.

  13. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous 11:16, you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you? You’ve got me pegged, all right. I’m one of those “conservatives.”

    As it happens, the right to bear arms isn’t the top of my list of priorities, probably because I don’t own a gun — in fact, to my recollection, I’ve shot a gun only once in my life.

    If forced into taking a policy position before carefully considering the issues, I would probably suggest this: The flaw in the system exposed by the tragic VT events is the fact that Mr. Cho was known (by some) to be mentally ill but he managed to acquire two guns anyway.

    If it is not already illegal to sell a gun to a mentally ill person in Virginia, it should be. But the simple existence of a law will not solve the problem if there is no database of mentally ill people that a gun dealer can check.

    I would argue that (a) we need to clarify what state of mental illness disqualifies someone from owning/purchasing a gun, (b) we need to compile a database of such individuals, and (c) we need to require anyone selling a gun to check that database — just like he’d check the buyer’s criminal background.

    If the National Rifle Association wants to defend the right of mentally ill people judged to be a danger to themselves and others to buy guns, well, I guess I can’t stop them. But I think they’d get eviscerated in the court of pulic opinion. On the other hand, I don’t see that the VT events justify measures any more draconian than what I’ve suggested.

  14. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Mr. Provo:

    There are definitely some real issues facing Virginia resulting from the Va Tech mass murders. However, I agree with Jim Bacon’s perspective of waiting before engaging in that discussion. First, I think it’s right to mourn the dead without comment for a period of time. Then, for me, the emotions that accompany a horror have to subside before any reasoned discussion can start. I believe that those who advocate a delay in this matter are doing so out of respect for those who were murdered. I am sure that everybody who participates on this site is heartbroken over the shootings in Blacksburg. I know that I am.

  15. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Anon 11:16:

    For what it is worth, I have read Jim Bacon’s writings and found some to be more conservative ans some to be more liberal. To me, he seems hard to “pidgeon hole”. So, as I said in a prior post, I respect and agree with his decision to defer debate.

    Also for what it’s worth, I am either a centrist or a liberal I guess. You can judge for yourself next week when I share my thoughts on this horror. Until then, my refusal to discuss this is my way of being respectful of those who were killed. I believe Jim Bacon’s reasons for delaying comment are also legitimate.

  16. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Larry Gross:

    I see the state of Virginia as something of a “financial nanny” for the localities given the strict application of Dillon’s Rule in this state. Therefore, I see some of what the state collects in taxes as being collected in lieu of a properly empowered local government. By that (perhaps twisted) logic I see state income taxes as both a local and state matter. Good jobs raise salaries, people with higher salaries pay more taxes so the state has more money to spend. This additional money is used to fund both those activities that are appropriate for a state government and those activities that should be managed by the localities but are not due to Virginia’s love affair with Judge Dillon.

    As to Shennandoah Park being wrongheaded – only time will tell. It sure is pretty but it’s not my place to tell the people who live in that part of the state how they should use their land. Just like it’s not Del. Athey’s place to tell people in Loudoun or Fairfax how to use their land. However, regarding Shennandoah Park:

    1. I believe that it is owned by the Dept. of the Interior as a National Park. Therefore, it is owned by and managed by a group controlled by elected officials not a private “management entity”. As with other public lands, elected officials decide whether there should be cattle grazing, oil exploration, etc. on this land. While I would be much happier if the park were owned by the counties in which it resides or (much less attractive) the state of Virginia, at least the feds. are elected.

    2. Although I am sure that most people hope the park is enduring there is no reason to believe it is permanent. If things change the government, reacting to the voice of the electorate, will change too.

    All land use decisions create quandries. That’s why I believe that they should all have substantial public oversight and no decision should be permanent.

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Jim Bacon,
    Glad to hear your views on gun control. Sorry to have implicated you.

  18. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Folks – madmen have inhabited the earth for a long time and have killed many, many people.

    and they are still with us….

    I’m not excusing it and I’m not saying it should not be addressed

    but if we don’t take a breath, will we be, in fact, headed towards a world where each of us is evaluated and the results put into a central database and others decide what our individual freedoms are?

    not only own guns, but drive cars, be trusted around kids, work in post offices, etc,

    Do you really want it to be mandatory for each of your kids to be ‘evaluated” when they enter school and then possibly have your kid labelled as “not quite right” and/or “needs to be monitored”?

    How many folks have mental issues but have never killed or hurt verses how many are and are deadly?

    How do we ferret out that one deranged guy without rounding up everyone else and turning some of them into an “underclass”?

    No – the question is not – “How do we”, the question is “do we want to do this”?

  19. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: land preservation/Shennandoah

    my rhetorical question –

    Do we now request our National and State Parks and feel that it would have been better to not set them aside in the first place?

    Was the idea of preserving Yellowstone a “nanny” idea?

    What I’m looking for is a self-consistancy of one’s concept with respect to preservation – policy.

    If you don’t think it is correct to preserve in the first place – then that position is perfectly consistent with opposition to the preservation of open space because it’s merely a subset of the overall concept.

    However, if one thinks it is the correct thing to do in “some circumstances” – then the job at hand is to identify a rational criteria – a general guideline for deciding when to do so and when not to do so.

    That was.. my “shorthand” with respect to “significance”.

  20. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous 2:09, Thanks.

    Larry, I don’t think *anyone* would want to engage in psychological profiling of the general population. But if someone like Cho, due to his eratic behavior, gets referred to a pyschiatric clinic where he is ascertained to be a danger to himself and/or to others, I think that kind of information *should* be known to anyone who might sell him a gun.

    I’m sure there are legal and ethical questions about what it takes to tag someone as a danger, and it’s something that should be sorted out after prolonged and thoughtful debate. But it’s a debate we need to have.

  21. rodger provo Avatar
    rodger provo

    I take strong issue with some of the comments made here in response
    to my earlier posting today.

    NLS during week had a wonderful
    picture and poem about the sad event at Virginia Tevch, as their
    lead posting.

    As a former executive editor of two
    newspapers, a reporter for another
    and an executive for a major broadcast company, I think what they did
    with their site showed class and
    a wonderful sense of civility for
    those lost and damaged by this bad
    event.

    The writer who talks about madmen
    killing people from the beginning of time is just wrong trying to
    excuse this event with such a poor
    comment.

    Our state has weak gun control laws. We have problems in our
    mental health system.

    The events at Virginia Tech need
    addressing to help the families who
    lost their loved ones, the VT and
    Blacksburg community, Virginia and
    nation have hope that we can do better that what one writer on this
    blog implied in an earlier posting.

  22. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    My heart goes out to all innocent victims and their families and friends at Va Tech just as it did with previous trajedies – Columbine, Oklahoma City, the Twin Towers, Loudoun, Madrid, and hundreds of other terrible trajedies that despite our best efforts – do happen.

    It is truly heartbreaking to see anyone but especially young kids die in terrible circumstances- on the Tech Campus just as it was in Columbine or Okalahoma City where even infants died.

    I’m not trying to excuse the “madman” trajedy at Tech at all.

    Perhaps one difference is that I cannot forget the previous ones and this is .. yet another…

    I don’t see the Tech trajedy as unique but yet one more… that should never have happened.

    If Rodger still thinks I’m wrong – so be it. I’ll not lie about it.

  23. rodger provo Avatar
    rodger provo

    I would suggest that when society
    starts refusing to tackle the more
    complex problems confronting it we
    are all in trouble.

    I think we should applaud what the
    Governor and President have done
    this week in response to the Va Tech
    tragedy:

    -a state task force to review all aspects of the event

    -a national panel to review how
    we might work to better find
    and help persons such as the gunman and
    thus protect innocent lives.

    Virginia has control over our gun
    laws, some of the most weak in our
    nation.

    We live in a state that a person
    with mental illness is not flagged
    in the background check process
    when one buys a gun.

    I am less educated about our mental
    health services, but I think
    funds invested in mental health
    services benefit all of us.

    We are all upset by those events mentioned by Mr. Gross,
    but we should be concerned and
    active in tackling problems in our state we can impact.

  24. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Larry:

    I cannot imagine a consistent approach to development. One size does not fit all.

    The amount of land in the US is fixed. Unlike electricity and cars – we can’t just make more when we want.

    The problem with looking for a single policy is that land use decisions must be made in conjunction with the local situation.

    Fairfax County is pretty much “toast” with regard to development. If someone wanted to set aside some land there – as a resident – I’d say “absolutely”.

    Wise County is a whole lot less developed than Fairfax. If the residents of Wise County decided that they would prefer development to parkland – I’d support themk.

    As I said, I am not Del. Athey. I don’t preseume to tell other people what to do with the land in their local area.

    However, without making land use decisions for others, I have a huge issue with thr federal government establishing permanent land use partnerships with what I consider to be “rich do gooders” to set aside land in a permanent conservation easement. Especially without a vote by the local citizens or oversight from locally elected officials.

    That’s the “nanny government”.

    Did the feds do the right thing with the National Parks program? Probably although that was then and this is now.

    Most importantly, the national parks are owned by the government, managed by elected officals and their use can be changed if the need arises.

    They should be owned by the localities within which they exist but ownership by the feds is much better than oversight by a “management entity”.

    It’s the process that I question.

    Frank Wolf has real problems to solve – like the abject fiasco that is our involvement in Iraq. He should spend his time on federal issues and leave the local land use issues for the localities.

    It’s not 1850 anymore. The vast majority of Virginia’s citizens can read. There is TV, radio. newspapers and the internet. The need for a federal “nanny government” is long lost. It’s time to empower the local governments to make local decisions and demand that the ferderal officials clean up the various national messes they have created.

  25. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I know there is popular public sentiment that local governance is better than one-size-fits-all Nanny govt dictates…

    but I wonder about .. for instance what I Interstate Highway system would look like if there were not Federally-dictated standards.

    Ditto at the state level … if VDOT was not setting road standards, what would the roads look like that connected local jurisdictions across the regions?

    Ditto with .. say prescription drug standards, airport standards, coal-mining standards, etc, etc.

    I’m not sure you intended the land-use, preservation issue to extend to the issue I raise above but my view is that local-control DOES have some advantages with respect to knowing what is best for local circumstances and that, yes, the Feds and State approaches to rules can be ham-fisted…

    but… without the Feds – we would never have our National Parks and yes.. while we are nearing maturity in terms of remaining designations – if this had been left up to the localities or even the states – it never would have come to be.

    Bad stuff DID happen. People in Shennandoah were, in fact, forced off of their land and the bitterness remains to this day among the families .. affected.

    But now that we have Shennandoh – how about the question that since it was not supported by the localities initially that we turn it back over to them.. to set things right?

    Ditto for other Federal Parks – turn them back over… and let the locals decide what to do …

    If this idea bothers folks – then flash back to the present and present-day preservation efforts.

    Are they wrong and shortsighted or are they far-sighted.

    50 years from now.. will our current day efforts at preservation be admired or despised?

  26. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    There are legitmate tasks for the federal government and for local governments. I am less sure about what constitutes a legitimate task for state government. I guess the state police would be a legitimate example of a state task but I think the state of Virginia does way too many things and very few things well.

    What would the roads look like without the state? I guess more like they look in Henrico and Arlington. Or Maryland or North Carolina. In other words – they’d look fine.

    The feds need to run the Navy for example.

    Local governments need to make land use decisions such as zoning.

    I think the feds should get out of the land management business except for military uses. They can keep the National Parks but no more federal taking of land. If localities want to set aside their own land while respecting property rights – fine.

    I am sure that the people who were forced from their land for the Shennandoah Park were furious. However, here in the East we barely understand the runaway land holdings of the federal government. Go out to Idaho or Wyoming. Not only do the feds own much more land than they need to own they are also routinely immoral in how they try to get more land. If you own land bordering federal land – watch out!

    Are our present day preservation efforts wrong headed? I’d say yes.

    Land use should be a local matter and no one should develop land or put it into a conservation easement without the permission of the local citizens.

    No permanent “management entity” should be allowed to hold land without paying the same taxes as an individual would pay (including inheritance taxes or their equivalent).

    However, if localities want to buy land and reserve it for conservation – fine by me. The decision is made by locally elected officials and can be undone by the same locally elected officials.

    Just my opinion.

  27. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    How about we sell Chancellorsville and Gettysburg back to private interests…. and let the localities decide what level of proection or not which might well include some level of historical-associated development?

    I’m not being faceitious….

    I note the Nature Conservancy has taken a similiar approach…let me explain.

    Their business plan is a “revolving fund”. They find a deserving property and buy it, then they have to replenish the fund with donations.

    At some point – it becomes painfully apparent that donations are finite.. and yet their list of deserving properties keeps expanding.

    So.. what they’ve done is .. triage – they’ve decided what “significant” means with respect to their mission.

    A donated property deemed not significant, with approval from the person who donated – can be sold to generate funds.

    More innovative is the concept of actually buying a threatened property – and then recouping it’s costs by allowing some part of it to be developed – carefully – by insuring that the most significant portion is .. preserved.

    Their policy has been controversial. I know folks who have quit in protest.

    But you know – you cannot save everything – and certainly not everything is “significant” is terms of being worth saving.

    From THAT point of view – Blank-check conservation easements on private property with no public access is really questionable and even more so .. if they result in essentially a “patchwork” of parcels that are not connected and not contiquous (like Shennandoah IS).

    The government could operate the way that the Nature Conservancy does – at the local, state and Federal Level.

    They could identify “significant” land and then establish an operating fund that cannot use tax dollars.

    There is actually an existing model – the PPTA – public private transportation lets entrepreneurs buy land to provide a highway corridor – and leave open the ability that they could acquire adjacent… developable land – whose future sale .. would help offset the cost of the roadway right-of-way and still provide a profit – with no taxpayer funding.

    I think what you are saying is that the idea of DESIGNATING land for preservation rather than other uses – on a very wide scale – while good-intentioned – may be ultimately not in the public interest.

    wrong?

  28. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Larry:

    Your summary of my thinking is right.

    Wide scale and permanent designation of land for conservation removes that land from the inventory of land available for economic development. As the population and the economy continues to grow the land left for economic development gets more and more expensive. A shrinking percentage of the population can afford to own the land that is designated for development. This spreads the wealth gap which is not in the interests of the USA.

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