Pat Proxy Post: Empowering County Botanists and Directors of Restroom Affairs

Admin Note: Pat is expected back from Army OCS on 21 March. This column of his originally ran in September 2007.

Minnesota has been up against it lately, what with floods, droughts, forest fires, a bridge collapse, and a surly foreclosure struggle. In the state where the “20th” 9/11 hijacker and was arrested 6 years ago for plotting jihad and a US Senator was arrested several weeks ago for lewd bathroom behavior, safety, morality, and hope have betimes seemed more imminent.

But Iowa’s darn corn keeps growing, its housing market keeps creeping (4.1% in 2nd quarter), and Winneshiek women remain the nation’s second longest-living. Such is our vantage on Maslow’s pyramid that our biggest threat in the north-east corner seems the ravaging Japanese knotweed invasion, for which Iowa DNR forester John Walkowick recommends you call your local county roadside vegetation specialist or county weed commissioner. Ah, but there’s the rub. Who knew we funded knotweed bureaucrats? Perhaps it doesn’t surprise voters who elected a local Soil and Water Conservation Commissioner in last year’s elections. Little use for work ethic, initiative, and self-reliance when we have government posts for our problems. But the government-first, Mr. Fix-it agitprop’s appeal fades when the hard rains start falling, so Iowa should spend its halcyon days learning from government’s struggles up north.

Government can solve some problems. It can build roads, for example. “But since problems are the only excuse for government,” PJ O’Rourke generalizes, “solving them is out of the question.” This is the problem of “state failure”, wherein the private sector outdoes the government in parsing externalities, coordinating projects, and pursuing comparative advantage. Minnesota’s implacable government, for example, fancied to solve traffic congestion and car pollution by dragooning taxpayers into funding a $715 million light rail transit system that profit-seeking enterprises dared not attempt. The project is done, but the problem unsolved. Traffic remains heavy (light rail transports mostly would-be bikers and walkers), operating losses soar ($12.65 million in 2006), and the tram has run over more people than have been shot as a result of MN’s conceal and carry gun rights law.

Minnesota also evinces government’s inefficiency in deciding where to focus its inefficiencies. Whether the money diverted from road and bridge repairs towards light rail could have prevented the 35W collapse is unclear. But for nebbishes in the 6th-highest taxed state’s government, endowed with a $34.5 billion general fund, to respond by proposing gas tax hikes and a $930 million light rail addition (lawmakers propose borrowing $80 million from county and local government highway funds) rather than prioritizing, is indefensible. Many states offer local governments low-interest loans to repair roads and bridges. But due to light rail’s precedence, “local governments often front money to MNDOT [by raising property taxes]” the Rochester Post reports, to speed up attention to their exigent road problems. Quite the procedure for these local communities to cajole state help for the nuts and bolts of things, so to speak, but not quite so hard for the Twins to land a $1 billion state grant for a new stadium last year.

Minnesotans have come to expect the government not only to solve their problems, but to pay for their mistakes. It should not come as a surprise in a state where 95% of the State Child Health Insurance Program matching funds actually go to adults over 18, but many think the government ought to ensure repairs for the uninsured victims of the recent floods. Flood insurance is federally subsidized and nearly anyone can get it in Minnesota for around $300 a month, whether they live in a flood plain or not. Most people in south-eastern MN hadn’t reckoned it necessary before last months floods. Yet just days after uninsured homeowner Jeff Strain lost his house, he said about the government’s monetary response, “I think it sucks…As far as government, I haven’t heard anything” (Pioneer Press). FEMA eventually made grants possible, and Richard Daigle, public information officer for the SBA clarified, “It’s not a government handout. It’s your money. FEMA is funded by taxpayers”. It’s yours, you earned it, and whether or not you buy our cheap insurance, it’ll be yours next time too.

Good for Minnesota for catching Sen. Craig in the bathroom, but who knew they posted undercover officers in bathroom stalls to watch for startling foot-movement? One wonders what other special posts our money funds. The Minnesota DFL’s response to the bridge collapse highlighted government’s misplaced priorities, and the floods revealed Minnesotans’ dependence on government. When tragedy moves south, Iowa’s response will be telling.