Colin McNickle At Large

Say what?

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Public officials, and those who belly up to the trough of taxpayer largess, say the darnedest things.

Take, for instance, Christina Cassotis, CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority. In helping to announce last week that OneJet is adding more nonstop destinations with larger jets to its operations out of Pittsburgh International Airport, said Cassotis:

“Yes, we had a big announcement recently about Seattle,” she said, a reference to another heavily publicly subsidized new flight. But, “It’s as important that people are able to get to Memphis and Kansas City. It’s as important that people can get to Louisville and Cincinnati without connecting, without driving or without giving up their trip.”

What about without having to have their pockets dipped into by elected and appointed leaders turning them into involuntary venture capitalists?

Do remember, OneJet has been given millions of dollars in public grants and loans to subsidize this “progress.”

Then there’s a very appreciative (of course) Matt Maguire, CEO of OneJet. Consider this quote:

“The growing pains are done in Pittsburgh,” he said, admitting “We started with Pittsburgh because of the (public) incentives, but I think we found there is a true market here and we’re making money her, so I think we’ll continue to expand out of Pittsburgh now that we have a built-in customer base.”

Which warrants this dissection:

Taxpayers improperly were turned into venture capitalists to “prime the pump,” so to speak, for OneJet’s expansion. If the airline wanted to expand, it should have risked its own money in pursuit of profit.

Now, OneJet says “there is a true market here.”

When can we expect OneJet to repay the public’s forced “investment”?

Of course, sometimes what public officials don’t say is just as newsworthy and in the public’s interest. Consider last week’s revelation that Airport Authority board member Bob Lewis also just happens to be on OneJet’s board.

The Tribune-Review reports he’s a nonvoting member of the airline’s board of directors. Officials insist there’s no conflict of interest because Lewis never voted for any of the taxpayer incentives given to OneJet.

But that could be because the board previously had granted Cassotis the authority to bestow such corporate wealthfare on her own volition.

Nod-nod, wink-wink?

And neither Lewis nor Maquire would not tell the Trib if Lewis is an investor in the airline.

There is, in the least, the appearance of conflict of interest in the Lewis-OneJet matter. This arrangement sounds ripe for review by both the state auditor general and the state attorney general.

Now, let’s consider the words of Theresa Kail-Smith.

The Pittsburgh councilwoman is sponsoring legislation to expand an 8-year-old program in her West End district that uses Community Development Block Grant money to provide free lawn care for the disabled, the elderly and veterans.

“It not only helps the seniors, veterans and disabled people, but it helps the neighborhood look better,” she said. “It helps local businesses because we give contracts to local lawn-care services, and those folks hire local people to cut the grass.”

Additionally, says Kail-Smith:

“You cannot have an able-bodied person in your home who could cut the grass,” she told the Tribune-Review. “We don’t want to enable people. We want to empower people.”

But with all due respect to good intentions, enabling is exactly what this kind of government “beneficence” does. Instead of supposedly building a sense of community, it ends up dismantling it by supplanting the time-honored concept of neighbors helping neighbors.

Instead of fostering such a climate, “free” government programs only promote, with taxpayer dollars, deeper government dependence.

And government programs hardly are economic boosters. Simply put, and to paraphrase economist Robert P. Murphy, money expended by government is not nearly as likely to channel resources available to valuable uses as money – or time, it should be added –spent/given by the private sector.

Now here’s a prime example of what’s wrong with government “logic”:

Pittsburgh City Council has advanced legislation what would increase the city’s realty transfer tax by 25 percent, from 4 percent to 5 percent in 2020 (in two half-percentage point installments).

The proceeds would go into a housing trust fund to aid lower income residents.
But when two council members voted against the deal last week, noting how those very same low-income residents would “bear the greatest burden for this tax,” Councilman Dan Gilman, who’s leading the effort for the measure, said grants authorized from that very trust fund would more than cover the realty transfer tax hike.

Digest this for a moment: Raise a tax that affects the most the very people you are professing to help, then cover the lie of the misguided government intervention with another misguided government intervention.

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

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Colin McNickle
Colin McNickle

Colin received his B.G.S. from Ohio University. The 40-year journalism veteran joined the Institute in October 2016. That followed a 22-year career with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 18 as director of editorial pages for Trib Total Media. Prior that, Colin had a long and varied career in media — from radio, newspapers and magazines, to United Press International and The Associated Press.

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