The answer:  They shouldn’t!  The urban design experts on Buffalo Rising are currently arguing about how your money, and mine, should or should not be spent.  At issue is the proposed Burchfield Penney Art Center located on the Richardson Complex grounds.  The original post author experiences monumental shock and dismay because there are actually people opposing the project.  The bickering that ensues is comical.  The problem is the project is being opposed for the wrong reasons.

The highly charged, humorous discussion is a result of people not spending their own money.  They, and everyone else, have lost control over the spending of much of their hard earned money.  The press release put out by Kathleen Heyworth, Director of News Services for the BPAC, is deceptive at best.  It states that almost $28 million has been raised for the project.  It doesn’t state that $17.75 million of that total was taken from us by force in the form of federal and state taxes.  That number is identified in Governor Pataki’s press release.

The decision, on how to spend that money taken from us, is made by a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in an office, far removed from the results of their decisions.  They will probably never see the building up close, let alone the art inside.  Yet, they sit in judgment over spending your money, and mine, to determine which art or cultural projects are worthy of public funding.  The nexus of the matter is that public funds do not grow on trees and a country based on liberty should allow people the choice to spend their money as they see fit.

Ironically, a vast percentage of the population can not even afford the admission to many of these government supported cultural projects, yet their money is taken by force to support them.  Projects worthy of support would gladly be funded 100% by choice through private means if the money was not taxed out of the private economy first.  People willingly pay for the things they want . . .if they have the money to do so!

You can read a more detailed analysis of what is wrong with government funding of culturals here.