"Rain Forest Gate" Can't Swing Without Hinges
Cityview

by Nicholas Johnson (used with permission)

The Des Moines Register headlined a December 13 editorial,  "Rain Forest Hinges on Donor Support." And the Register's right: "rain forest gate" can't swing without hinges. But, like any effective barnyard gate, it requires more than the one good hinge of donor support. And therein lies a lesson of profound significance, not only for Iowa, but for every state and community throughout the country. It involves the juncture of five common, but dangerous, themes . . .

- The willingness to use public money to create and subsidize for-profit and non-profit ventures alike

- The belief that tourism is your town's lodestone to economic prosperity

- The ease with which boosterism can mushroom, and thereby

- Support the near-universal faith that "if we build it they will come"

- All relying on the widespread willingness to focus on benefits to the exclusion of costs and risks, to substitute board members for financial analysis, and enthusiasm for data.

Using taxpayers' money to fund for-profit corporations and non-profit public ventures is coming under increasing scrutiny from tax-and-spend Democrats, borrow-and-spend Republicans, and don't-spend Libertarians alike. We do have another model: the marketplace. It offers incentives. Entrepreneurs have dreams of riches and nightmares of bankruptcy. Venture capitalists and banks want to get their money back. They insist on detailed business plans.

But note something often ignored. Even with those motivations, one-third of each year's 800,000 new businesses fail within four years. When those motivations are not present and public money is, responsibility is diffused, boosterism replaces financial analysis, and the likelihood of financial failure escalates even further.
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