To the editor:

Had the Journal-World not highlighted Mayor Sue Hack’s irrelevant and mistaken comment, “It’s not government money; it’s taxpayers’ money,” regarding city plans to help the Lawrence Arts Center, it probably would not be worth writing this letter.

It simply is not true as a matter of law or morality that the funds administered by the city commission belong to taxpayers. Once collected, the funds are public funds whose administration is the responsibility of the government. Discussion of how the money is used can only be confused by talk of property. Were it really the property of taxpayers, the city would not be considering spending it at all.

The mayor’s comment resembles President Bush’s statement in support of the recent tax cut. Despite his tendency to mangle speech, his saying, “That money’s not the government’s money. It’s the people’s money,” was deliberate hokum, because by “people’s money” he did not mean public funds. Otherwise a tax cut would have been only one of many possible dispositions of the surplus. He meant to advance the right’s agenda of reducing the public sphere. The mayor’s comment, less ambiguous than the president’s, is even more insidious because it promotes the long-rejected idea that participation in government is based on taxpayer status.

The city would do well to help the arts center. Doing so meets the requirement that government act responsibly as the steward of public funds. I wish I could believe that is what she meant to say.

Paul Fairchild,
Lawrence