As a country, we have a nasty habit of being shortsighted. While other nations think in terms of decades, we often have trouble seeing beyond the next election cycle.
It’s not our fault. We’ve seen what a change in administration can do. Priorities shift and funding pivots to the next shiny thing, often leaving a wake of destruction and broken promises in the process.
Projects that were once touted as ground-breaking never actually break ground. Programs that were supposed to create hundreds of jobs simply fade into the ether. Lofty ambitions become no match for the reality of a bottom line.
Let’s take Main Street as an example.
Tens of millions of dollars have been awarded in revitalization grants over the past few years. The headlines are a welcome blessing for municipalities struggling to bring life back to their once bustling merchant districts. There are ribbon cuttings with politicians lined up to pat each other on the back for a job well done.
Buildings that were in disrepair and that have sat empty for years are promised new life and are even sometimes are given impressive facelifts that remind us of times when Main Street thrived.
We bask in the glow of progress and assure ourselves that this will surely benefit our area. But once the money is spent and the fanfare subsides, reality settles in.
Turns out through all the excitement, we forgot it wasn’t some crumbling brick facade that stopped us from shopping on Main Street. Our habits simply changed and what we once bought locally can now be shipped to our door for a fraction of the price. While we all may want to support them, our altruistic intent will only go so far.
As always, I’m painting with a very broad brush. Some grants and funding really do make a difference, but it won’t support a business or organization long-term. It’s often a temporary solution to a problem that will require further future investment, typically with little to no idea where that money will come from.
While local governments and politicians understand this, it’s hard to turn down millions of dollars that will likely end up elsewhere, so the money train keeps chugging along.
These days, there’s rarely a major project that doesn’t at least partly rely on some sort of grant with promises of future prosperity. If capitalism is truly all it’s cracked up to be, wouldn’t private industry make these investments anyway? Shouldn’t we look forward to figure out the true viability of an endeavor before accepting these funds? Instead, municipalities are taking on untold future debt without knowing how it all gets paid for in the long run.
In simpler terms, anyone can buy a used Mercedes, but it’s the maintenance that will get you.
PILOT (payment in lieu of tax) programs give tax breaks that can often run for decades, depriving those same municipalities of needed revenue far beyond the initial impact these projects provide. The jobs that were promised were short lived, and the economic impact tends to go to private industry profits while communities continue to languish.
I often lament the woes of society without having the answers on how to fix them, but then again that’s not my job. It’s the politicians we elect that decide how and where money is spent. I don’t fault them for trying to bring dollars into our county. I do wonder how sustainable many of these projects are without those dollars.
We’ve become too accustomed to passing costs and liability on to future generations and it’s unsustainable.
Our country is now nearly $40 trillion in debt, but the money train keeps on chugging. Choo-choo!
