November 28, 2008
Political Science Department
Why Government Sucks
One Chicago suburb has a plan to improve its budget next year:
The Village of Maywood increased the liquor license fee for liquor stores from $1,875 to $10,000 to pay for additional police presence around these establishments.
...
Village officials say the increase is needed "to offset police services and enforcement activities and other costs ... associated with the stores," according to a memo from Village Attorney Michael Jurusik to the mayor and board of trustees.
"We've gotten too many complaints," Maywood Mayor Henderson Yarbrough said of the loitering, panhandling and other nuisances associated with liquor stores.
And apparently, nobody in Maywood ever noticed until now. I wonder what the Maywood police have been doing with their time.
Anyway, I found this story through the always-interesting Second City Cop blog, which has this to say:
Anyone want to take a bet that instead of Maywood reaping $70,000 in licensing fees, they lose the $13,125 they were getting in the first place? You'd have to weigh it against the alleged "extra" police presence at the liquor stores, but wouldn't a better purpose have been served by requiring the liquor stores to have on-site security? You'd have the $13,125 in license fees, you'd have part-time jobs for 14 or more people providing security and you'd have a business being a more responsible entity to the village.
SCC's anonymous author is pretty bright, and he's right that increasing the tax burden on the stores will encourage them to leave. Granted, the per-store increase of $8125 isn't a whole lot of money, so I doubt they'll leave immediately, but it does make it less likely they'll stay, and it definitely disourages new stores from opening.
On the other hand, SCC doesn't seem to realize that forcing the stores to hire additional employees will have the same effect. To the store owner, it doesn't matter whether his extra costs go to village taxes or to unneeded employees. Either way, he doesn't have to pay it if he moves his business out of town.
I'm not entirely surprised that SCC makes this mistake---he probably doesn't see it as a problem. It's exactly the kind of thinking I'd expect from someone who is both a government employee and a union member, two institutions which pay far too much importance to creating jobs. Also, I'm pretty sure that SCC is blinded by the expectation that the new security positions will be filled by police retirees or off-duty cops.
In other words, this is an argument between government employees over exactly how to pick the taxpayers' pockets. This is why government sucks.
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I've noticed, as well, that brighter government employees are often able to recognize market forces up to the point that the recognition collides with their own financial interests.
Hereabouts, the offduty gigs are one of the many things that prevents the MPD brass from exercising control over line officers; the highly-paid overtime is controlled by the union, and a lieutenant might often find that a good portion of his/her pay depends on keeping a senior patrol cop happy.