Some people in pursuing their business or charitable projects rely only on the voluntary support of customers or patrons. Other people rely on government funding, perhaps by default because it’s “always been that way.”
Still others not only feel entitled to government funding but are quite importunate about it, going so far as to use taxpayer dollars to pay for lobbying the government for even more taxpayer dollars.
My theory? If taxpayers weren’t so routinely robbed to fund lobbyists, fewer dollars in general would be siphoned from taxpayers’ pockets to the demanders’ pockets.
Lone Star state officials are making some progress toward ending taxpayer-funded tax-grubbing. The state attorney general, Ken Paxton, has reached an agreement with several Texas school districts guilty of taxpayer-funded campaigning against a school choice bill. They have agreed to institute safeguards to prevent themselves from doing it anymore. We’ll see.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott “has also had enough,” writes John Fund. Abbott is promoting a bill being considered in the legislature that would prevent cities, counties, and school districts from using tax dollars to hire lobbyists. Officials and teachers would still be able to talk to their representatives themselves.
“Texans are being taxed twice,” State Senator Paul Bettencourt, a supporter of the bill, explains, “once to fund local services and again to fund political lobbying they may not support.”
Yes, that’s the costly and corrupting problem all right. One that Texas is hardly alone in suffering but perhaps a ‘lone star’ in fighting.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Krea and Firefly
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