In defense of taxes, functioning government edition

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We just marked off another Tax Day on the calendar. Some greet the day on which federal and state income tax returns are due with glee — think accountants wrapping up a long, tiring season and those getting large returns.

But others, and they make themselves known, meet their tax obligations with anger. This vociferous crowd clamors for lower taxes and has pulled the debate over tax policy toward less revenue for the government. Less revenue then leads to less available to spending on government services. Those in favor of “starving the beast” cheer!

Yet two months ago, The Daily Record published two articles about the need for and plan to construct a new courthouse in Howard County. The twist is that the new courthouse would be built using a public-private partnership (P3), “which would be a first for a Maryland jurisdiction.” According to the County Executive Allan H. Kittelman, “under the public-private partnership, a private company will build the courthouse lease the building back to the county … which will not have to pay until the courthouse is occupied and in use.” That sounds to me like the taxpayers will be paying for a private company’s profit over a long-term, but some folks embrace privatization as some sort of panacea to what ails us.

Perhaps the P3 will work out well but the track record of such partnerships is a mixed-bag. For example, California entered into a P3 to construct (a visually striking) new courthouse in Long Beach. However, the cost of the project may have exceeded traditional procurement methods by $160 million and the California Legislative Analyst Office found government agencies involved in the project “did not use clear P3 processes and appear to have selected projects not well suited for a P3 procurement.”

All that aside, what I found most disturbing about the Howard County plan related to historical response from officials when the topic of the need for a new courthouse in Howard County was raised: “When building a new courthouse was suggested, the message was always the same: there was no money.” It is dispiriting to me that we would hear that funding for a new courthouse — a public space housing public services used by people across socioeconomic strata — could not be found in Howard County. If the wealthiest jurisdiction in Maryland cannot find the money to build a new courthouse, the outlook for vital social infrastructure spending in other jurisdictions seems bleak.

We must not fall into the trap in which taxes are vilified to the point that we cannot pay for our core governmental functions. A courthouse is a place where civil justice is sought, criminal behavior is punished and marriages begin and end. But that is not all that occurs in a courthouse. As Howard County Administrative Judge Lenore R. Gelfman told The Daily Record, “I think a lot of people think that a courthouse is just for trials, but business takes place here every day.”

I want Howard County to have a new courthouse that fits the needs of its residents. I also want us all to remember that our taxes pay for core services necessary for our society to function.