Left Brain/Right Brain: Should the public subsidize the monorail?

By James Gillen and Lisa Coffey

James: In the pages of the Mercury, George Knapp has been giving us "progress" reports on the Las Vegas Monorail, which started off, after months of delay, only to break down. The real problem, it turns out, was that the state government--including some people connected to the monorail backers--had the project declared a "charity," meaning that it's not only tax-exempt, but tax-subsidized for all the repairs that need to be made on it.

Stuff like this is why I have a deep suspicion of government and public works projects. Not because public works projects aren't necessary, but because I can't trust the government with public money, especially not the government we have in this state.

Lisa: Corruption? In Las Vegas? We are indeed indebted to George Knapp for keeping us abreast of the latest developments in the always intriguing monorail project. I could give him a great big kiss for doing it. Being an investigative reporter sure is a lot harder than just kicking back and spouting off opinions about one thing and another.

Does it surprise you to know that I share your suspicion of government and public works projects? Throughout history, and to this day in most places in the world, corruption is taken for granted. Governmental figureheads (especially kings, queens and presidents who have relatives and close friends in the oil business) have traditionally functioned as fronts, puppeting for the true behind-the-scenes power structures that prop them up and support them. It is an innovation that American democracy is founded in part on the collective agreement that corruption is illegal and punishable in our courts of law. This compels democratic criminals to be creative in figuring out ways to cloak their corrupt acts in "legal" disguises. To wit: a "charity" monorail. It's really quite ingenious!

James: Now we're getting somewhere. Here's another example, one that most people ought to know about: I'm driving to work last Tuesday, westbound on Desert Inn, on the overpass at I-15, and the traffic comes to a dead stop in the middle of the overpass because of the cones cutting off the right lane. Why are they there? Why weren't they there the day before? Why do we need the cones all the way up the overpass when there WASN'T any actual road construction until we got all the way down to Valley View? And why was it being done during rush hour? I just hope all those orange cones are being made in the USA, because that'd solve our trade deficit with no sweat.

Lisa: Please! Don't EVEN get me started on those orange cones! And how about those portable signs that are supposed to alert you to road construction on the freeway and they put them AFTER the last exit you could have taken to avoid the delay like they just thought you'd appreciate knowing why you're sitting there stuck in traffic? Whose brother-in-law is in charge of that?

But to get back to the monorail--I'm embarrassed to admit this, but it just occurred to me that there actually is a precedent for granting it tax-exempt "charity" status. I'm referring to that little smiley-face choo-choo train at Opportunity Village that transports the public through Santa's Village during the Christmas holidays. As far as I know, the profit mongers in that bastion of nepotism haven't paid a dime in taxes since the day they hatched their sinister scheme to provide a haven of training and productive employment for our community's mentally handicapped citizens.

James: Well, that's just it. Sometimes the public projects actually serve a public or charitable purpose. Sometimes. We can't have a completely laissez-faire economy, for the same reason that we can't have a completely anarchist political system--because there has to be some authority in charge of public works. But that authority is incredibly easy to abuse. And as you say, a lot of the corruption we see nowadays with corporations is only possible because they're using that government authority to back them up.

Lisa: So maybe the problem is all those privately owned "public" works?

James: Exactly. The key is to make the authorities accountable. In theory, we have a way to do this via the democratic process. In fact, we don't get a lot of choices. Consider that in Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, with his rep, got re-elected mayor because he's probably the most honest politician in town. THAT should tell you how screwed we are.

Lisa: Quite the contrary! Oscar Goodman gives me hope that a brilliant, articulate gentleman of integrity and humor can succeed as a politician. When a man tells a class of fourth-graders that he wants a bottle of gin with him if he gets stranded on a desert island, I'm inclined to believe him on other issues.