Note: I’ve recently been asked to provide a weekly article to the Concord Standard. So, for Standard readers: This is not deja vu. Welcome to the Cheap Seats.
In a recent article of the Standard, attorney Jim Scarborough was featured on the front page as a crusader taking on City Hall to defending us against an unfair “tax” – or so it would it seem. Actually, Scarborough is trying to resurrect a subsidy for homebuilders paid for by local residents and businesses – and make a little money for himself in the process.
The Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) was designed to take the edge off for the taxpayers of Cabarrus County. New development in areas with crowded schools would have to pay a fee. Currently, the fee is about half of the per-house cost of new school construction. This fee removes most of the subsidy that the developers enjoyed in the past, thereby removing the market distortion of supporting fiscally unsustainable development. Also, unlike a transfer tax – it is only levied in situations were the schools in the area lack the capacity to handle new students. Also, exemptions are made for small-scale development – targeting the fee mainly at developers of low-margin mass-produced houses.
Of course, the recipients of a subsidy hardly ever appreciate how much they cost the taxpayers. The complaint pattern of Scarborough’s clients is similar to others subsidy recipients: farmers growing monsoon crops in the desert; manufacturers of substandard, but domestically produced goods; artists whose work you think should be appreciating; and so on. It starts with an entitlement argument, Scarborough complained about how his forefathers could not survive in today’s market.
Tough.
He would do well to read Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat” to learn about how the rest of us have to scrape and claw every day in a global market. When that fails, subsidy proponents go to the jobs argument. This is also specious. At what point is it the government’s job to shore up a need that is not in the market? If we followed Scarborough’s argument to manufacturing - the City of Kannapolis would have taken over Cannon Mills, the County would have finished construction on the Corning plant and be operating it on their own.
All too often, businesses get comfortable, fail to adjust to their markets, and look for someone else to cushion the blow. This is because adjusting to changes in markets is a painful process. Families all around Cabarrus County do this every time they fill their cars up with $4/gallon gasoline. However, the well-connected have lawyers and lobbyists who can prevail upon those who should be looking out for the interests of all of us – to instead only look out for the interests of a select few to save them from the challenges we average Joes face.
Scarborough himself is responding to a market need. Why do you think that we’re hearing about this story now? With the housing market down, it’s easy for developers to remember the “good old days” and Scarborough is more than happy to deliver – as long as the taxpayers are picking up the tab.
