Irresponsible Governance – Chicago and Washington

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the Democrats in Congress were trying to pass a package of new social programs.  Obviously, they have been having a bit of a problem getting the bill passed.  Some Democrats only want to set up programs they can pay for.  A lot of others want to set up as many programs as possible, even if it is just for a year or two.  They are willing to spend all the money required to set up lots of new programs, even if the programs have to shut down after a couple of years because there’s no future money to continue them.  In other words, irresponsible governance.

But it’s not only Washington where you see this kind of irresponsible governance.  It’s happening in Chicago, too. For example, for a moment last week, I thought that Chicago had not only solved its huge pension liability¹ but also figured out a way to replace its hundreds of thousands of lead water pipes.² 

At least that is what I thought when Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed, and the City Council approved, a brand new guaranteed basic income program.  While the proposal is just for one year and only covers 5,000 people,³ no responsible government would propose such a program if it had billions of dollars of unfunded pension liabilities and hundreds of thousands of lead water pipes that need to be replaced.

For that matter, no responsible government would propose a new program if it could not continue it for more than one year and if it did not have a way to provide benefits to everyone who qualified.  Government benefits aren’t supposed to be a lottery awarded to a lucky few or an on-again off-again thing that you get one year but not the next.

But, of course, Chicago doesn’t have a responsible government.  Chicago has neither solved its pension problem nor come up with a way to get rid of its unsafe lead water pipes on a timely basis.  It just ignored them and passed this new program, a program that it can’t fund for more than one year.

What the City of Chicago has not figured out is that governments can’t do everything people want them to do, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do a good job on those things they actually do.  It is better to do what is necessary well than to do too many things poorly.

The same is true for Washington:  Make sure you are doing a good job on what you are already doing before taking on new things.  And make sure you can pay for whatever new programs you do set up too, because that is part of doing a good job.
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¹ Chicago’s unfunded pension liability is $32.9 billion.
² For a little info on Chicago’s problems with lead water pipes, see here.
³ Which is sort of like what a lot of Democrats want to do in Washington.