Politicians lie. Bless their hearts, they just can’t help it. There are things that they want and they’ve discovered that it is much easier to get those things if they don’t tell us the whole truth. And on some level we don’t really mind their lies. We want them to get things done and we’ve just grown accustomed to it. Besides, we all lie — at least about small things to facilitate daily living. So who are we to expect better from our politicians?
But maybe we should hold our politicians to a higher standard of truthfulness. After all, they do have a legal and moral responsibility to us. And their fibs have a much broader impact on other people than the lies of us regular people because they have power over the rest of us.
I’ve been thinking about all of this as I’ve been watching the machinations of local politics in Fayetteville. If the politicians were honest they would just announce that they want to raise our taxes, reduce spending on the popular trail system, and don’t really advocate for the interests of most businesses. But politicians can’t just tell us what they want. They have to lie.
Earlier this year city officials asked us to approve a referendum allowing the portion of the HMR tax that was dedicated to the development of parks to no longer have that restriction. They assured us that our parks won’t get cut. They just wanted more “flexibility.”
At the time I predicted that the “flexibility” they were seeking was to cut park development spending, including for further construction of our wonderful trail system. Sure enough, that is exactly what Alderman Bobby Ferrell proposed yesterday. According to the Northwest Arkansas Times, “Ferrell suggested cutting money budgeted for trail improvements…” I could have told you that they were lying when they said they only wanted “flexibility” over HMR tax proceeds, but then again I actually did tell you.
And no one should be fooled by the falsehood that Steve Clark, the head of the local Chamber of Commerce, advocates for the interests of businesses. He doesn’t. First, the Chamber only represents existing businesses, not future businesses. Unfortunately, existing businesses often favor regulations and other barriers to entry that would protect them from competition from yet-to-be-created businesses. There is no greater supporter of government-enforced monopolies than businesspeople. So, no one should confuse the Chamber of Commerce for an organization that advocates free-market policies that facilitate business formation and growth.
Second, Steve Clark doesn’t even appear to represent the existing businesses in Fayetteville. He and the Chamber clearly didn’t do a good enough job of advocating for local businesses to convince enough of them to pay the voluntary dues to keep him and the Chamber in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed. So, they convinced the city to tax businesses to pay the Chamber. Yes, they called the tax a “business license fee,” but that is just part of the honesty-challenged pattern. Steve Clark doesn’t really work for local businesses. He works for the city since a large chunk of his salary is paid by the city and not by voluntary dues to the Chamber.
If you don’t believe me that Steve Clark really represents the interests of city government and not business interests, just listen to what he said in support of the latest proposal to increase the city’s property tax. According to the Northwest Arkansas Times: “Steve Clark, president of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, said avoiding major cuts in city services, such as fire, police and sanitation, are his main priorities when it comes to finding ways to balance the budget.” (emphasis added)
I thought that protecting city worker jobs was the main priority of their unions or the politicians beholden to those workers. Advancing the interests of business is normally the main priority of the Chamber of Commerce, but I guess that changes when the Chamber staff effectively become city employees along with the police, firefighters, etc…
“Lie” is such a strong word that we have developed more polite terms for this regular behavior by politicians. We call it “spinning” or “packaging.” We have these more polite terms because it is probably unfair to expect politicians to avoid distorting or shading the truth altogether. They have to do it to get what they want done.
The problem is when we no longer recognize what is spin and what is truth. If we get fooled into believing that “flexibility” means something other than “cutting” and that the “Chamber of Commerce” necessarily means “business interests” we are the ones to blame, not the politicians. It’s part of their job to lie (or spin) and it is our job to be suspicious. Unfortunately, our local media and elites are overly credulous.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
I don’t know how many Chambers get tax dollars funneled to them but I know about every Convention and Visitor’s Bureau earns tax dollars from hotel taxes (or something similar). The Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Bureau being the most wealthy and powerful of them all (over $200 million in annual revenues). In fact, their PR budget is the size of the entire budget for the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau.
But I digress. Even Adam Smith recognized that the greatest enemy of free commerce was the merchants – they wanted to collude with each other or with the state to fix prices or gain monopoly powers.