Chattanooga is blessed with a number of eye-catching parks that add tremendously to our quality of life.
You may have read in the Times Free Press that a small new park will be coming to Chattanooga. It’s called Main Terrain. The 800-by-100-foot park will be off West Main Street, between Broad and Chestnut streets. It will feature sculptures designed to encourage physical activity and fitness. Undoubtedly the park will be a welcome and attractive addition to the area.
The only objection we offer is that funding for the park will come not only from local government and charitable contributions. Hundreds of thousands of dollars unfortunately will also come from a federal grant. That means taxpayers from around the United States will have to help pay for our local park – just as Chattanoogans have to help pay for other communities’ projects when similar grants are awarded elsewhere.
The new park in Chattanooga may be entirely worthwhile, but why involve the Washington “middle man” in the development of local parks?
What if, instead of Washington granting our community and others money for city parks, the federal government never collected all that money in taxes in the first place? Then more money would be left in local pockets for funding of the parks either through local tax revenue or through charitable donations, as the Constitution envisioned when it delegated strictly limited powers to Washington. (Local parks are not among those limited powers.)
Money is not free simply because it comes from the federal government. Making Washington an intermediary of sorts between local people and a local project adds a layer of bureaucracy – and expense – that might be avoided if Washington simply did not collect tax dollars for projects it was never intended to fund.
We welcome the new park to the community. But improper federal funding of such local projects is not wrong only when it happens “somewhere else.” Our crippling national debt proves that it’s past time for Washington to start handling its constitutional duties – and nothing more.