There's an election in Little Rock today, though you can be forgiven for believing it doesn't matter. It's not a vote on whether to raise taxes--taxes have already been raised.
All we get to decide is whether bonds will be issued to pay for $37.5 million earmarked for improvements to the Arkansas Arts Center. The City Board of Directors has already approved the 2 percent increase in hotel room tax that'll fund the improvements. All that's really at stake is whether the Arts Center gets money up front or in monthly installments as tax revenues come in.
And since it's a fait accompli, you might not feel motivated to vote if you don't care much about the Arts Center. You might even feel a little cheated, like all the important stuff was already decided.
I get that, though I understand we don't run things by plebiscite around here. We elect people to administer and manage public holdings. These people are accountable to us. We can vote against them when their contracts come up for renewal.
Ideally politics and governance ought to be separate realms--politics is what you practice in order to be elected, governance is making government work. To paraphrase poet Matthew Arnold, there is the world of ideas (politics) and the world of practice (governance). You can be as idealistic as you want when you're running for office, but once elected, you're everybody's president or senator or city director. You're supposed to lead, not simply poll your constituency; you're supposed to know more about these issues than the rest of us, who have our own jobs to worry about.
One very old, probably timeless, way to practice politics is to attack the government. And these days there seem to be a lot of people who actively hate the government and believe we should starve it. One of the reasons the city took this roundabout way of giving the Arts Center some more money is because there are some people who will vigorously oppose any tax for any reason. They would reflexively oppose the tax. They might even defeat it.
Since people in Little Rock don't generally have much call to rent hotel rooms in the city where they live, it's not as hard to raise taxes on hotel rooms as it is on something we do buy, like consumer goods. Which is why the bump in the hotel tax--this will bring it up to 15 percent--isn't a subject of great controversy. While it seems a little sneaky and maybe inhospitable, it probably isn't going to deter anyone from staying overnight in the city. I don't think I've ever inquired about the tax rate before booking a hotel room.
So we're not really paying for the Art Center improvements; we're foisting it off on the visitors to our fair city, a good many of whom will probably be passing it on to their company comptroller via an expense account chit. And we know how companies deal with the cost of doing business. This is how the world goes 'round.
I should probably say that I voted for the measure on the first day that early voting was allowed. I'm a fan of the Arts Center and I trust them when they tell me that it's better for them to have the cash in hand than to get it in installments. They believe having the cash in hand will help them secure the private donations they'll also need to renovate the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History building.
I want them to get their money upfront, before municipal priorities can change, new city directors are elected, budgets trimmed and funds diverted.
Some people don't agree. They might think the Arts Center is a waste of taxpayer money and that it shouldn't be shielded from economic Darwinism, that it should be privately funded, if it all. And because what the city giveth, the city can presumably take away, it's better to get the money up front.
This is how we operate. We want to make sure that people who think and feel as we do go to the polls; we'd just as soon people who disagree with us stay home. Sometimes this game is played in ways that give us pause. I don't mind if people who don't share my confidence in the Arts Center decide not to go out and vote.
But I recognize that it's a small step from that to actively discouraging people from voting. And that's problematic, because while I believe that withholding your vote can be a valid form of political speech, I worry that our politics has more or less devolved into rooting interests.
It's not that I don't believe politics matter--it's just that I'm tired of the rhetoric and the rancor of campaigns and of the disingenuousness of those who profess to be "political junkies." I am sick of hard-headed pragmatists suggesting thoughtfulness is a character flaw. I'm sick of coded messages that relieve "good people" of their responsibilities to the less fortunate. I'm sick of bungling mediocrities propped up by business interests presuming to instruct us in morality. I am weary of the incessant arguments and the failure of politicians to address the genuinely difficult questions facing us. I am tired of stupid ads pitched to stupid people and the winking narcissism of those who would report on "the process." I don't want to tell anyone how to vote--I hope people think about what we're doing.
It is ironic so many people who profess to be interested in politics regard art as soft and decadent and ultimately immaterial to the lives of most folks. What is important to most folks is the texture and nuance of a well-lived life, the individual experience that exists apart from the collective undertaking.
Most of us have better things to think about than politics.
------------v------------
Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.
Editorial on 02/09/2016