Are City Leaders’ Priorities in Good Enough Order to Justify More Bond Debt?

Few stories have received as much attention recently as the struggles of the San Antonio Symphony.  One issue sure to grab some of the spotlight in coming months is the looming $1.2 billion bond election.

There’s some overlap between the two: the arts. 

The drainage and parks committees stirred controversy by recommending reducing or cutting funding for public art from their respective bonds.  The ensuing protests miss an important point, skew another, and cloak it all in emotional pleas.

Some claim that “great cities,” including others in the Lone Star state, “spend more” on public art than we do.  And they’re right.  Something else those Texas cities have more of however, is the ability to pay. They are better able to service their debt on a per capita basis. 

This is where the symphony problems provide a good analogy. 

If it’s not worth the time and effort of proponents to spearhead fundraising drives to appeal to citizens for a few dollars each (roughly what it would take to plug the gap) to finance sculptures, murals, etc. around town, how proper is it to bill us involuntarily via property taxes that will service the bond debt?

That goes doubly if citizens were not inclined to contribute.  Perhaps it’d be wiser for elected officials and city bureaucrats to focus on removing the obstacles that impede our ability AND willingness to pay.

Instead, word maestros spin yarns about the need for “transformative … public art” if a city really wants to “aspire to greatness.”  That has it almost exactly backwards.  It’s almost like saying the symphony is a key to economic development. 

Societies become great by letting their people be free to live their lives, to freely associate with others.  Affluence tends to follow.  When people achieve wealth, the arts, among other beneficiaries, attract funding.  In economic nerdo-speak, it’s called a positive spillover (externality). 

San Antonio’s lag in this regard, is what is hindering the symphony.  And what feeds this lag is an overactive government populism.

You can’t forcibly take from some constituents to give to others simply because the latter “wanted it,” and expect progress. 

You can’t give family businesses the run around, making them play whack-a-mole with random zoning designations, and expect future entrepreneurs to take what is already a perilous dive into opening their own venture. 

You can’t count on the stability of leadership that has proven willing to use “regulatory tools” to crack down on its subjects as a response to a public health crisis. 

If government can’t at least be predictable, then it offers little value to citizens. 

Rather than scrutinize those areas, the voting public is urged to have patience for another failed government program that rested on faulty premises to begin with.  Or, cues are taken from national talking points to redefine “public art … as infrastructure investment for the soul and spirit.” 

As a result, we keep playing the caboose while other Texas metros steam ahead. 

With the symphony cancelling more shows, and a case starting to be made to put it on the dole as well, how long before taxpayers are ‘asked’ by elites to pick up the tab for another enterprise that apparently can’t survive on its own?