Monday, February 16, 2004
 
No Taxes for Ads

Today's poster child for poor use of government funds: St. Clair County, Illinois, spends $500,000 to promote the only airline flying into MidAmerica Airport. An airport built with public funds an hour outside of St. Louis that had no airlines coming in when it was built. And now that Great Plains is broke, despite $500,000 of tax-paid promotion, MidAmerica Airport again sits idle, except for the tax-paid employees wandering around with nothing to do.

Which brings me to what might be the most blatantly bad waste of tax money. Advertising of any sort, for any reason. Particularly to promote private enterprises.

Whether it's half a million to Fleishmann-Hillard to line the pockets of the influence industry in St. Louis or it's a half percent tax here in Casinoport on hotel rooms to promote tourism--the government has no business redistributing wealth from its citizens to already affluent sectors. The government might claim it's out to make the community better, but it means by community its tax base, and wasting tax money on advertising is only one more symptom of an organic government that exists to consume and grow, not to serve its citizens.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:38 PM
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