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What's in a name? Would a ride through the San Juan Islands on the Vulcan or the Nintendo, rather than the Klickitat or the Chetzamoka, be just as sweet for commuters and tourists and provide a much-needed, painless source of revenue from Paul Allen and Satoru Iwata for Washington State's cash-poor ferry system?
I think so. It's time that all of our laggard public services set sail on the sea of enterprise. All over America, state and local governments are deeply in the red. With their revenue streams reduced to trickles, and unable or unwilling to raise taxes as a Tea Party mentality increasingly dominates the airwaves, governments are cutting back on services and instituting user-fees. I, for one, do not want to see services cut any further. I favor solid support for education, public safety, transportation, health, and recreation. I want a sensible teacher-student ratio in classrooms, a higher education system that provides a wide variety of programs and promotes research, a quick response time from police and firefighters, pot-hole-free sidestreets and well-maintained highways, basic health care for the indigent, and public parks, youth programs, and senior centers.
Some governments are in fact responding inventively to the lack of funds. The Arizona state government is selling state-owned property to get a cash infusion, then leasing the property back from the new owners. Arizona also plans to privatize the management of its highway rest stops. The Maywood, CA, city government has outsourced all jobs and fired all employees. It turns out to be cheaper for Maywoodians to pay the L.A. County Sheriff's Department to police their city; they also contract with the neighboring city of Bell to handle their parking enforcement. Bell itself has recently forced its administrators to resign and has instituted drastic governmental pay cuts. And Beatrice, NB, is selling city-owned land so that the buyers will pay property taxes on it and the city can lower its gardening and maintenance bills.
These creative ideas are a start, but government officials can and should do much more. With the economy weakened and taxpayers in revolt, our leaders must seek support from individuals, corporations, and non-governmental organizations. It's no use simply to advocate "soaking the rich," those who make in excess of $200,000 annually; the political will isn't there. In my view, leaders need to institute some user-fees, some sort of value-added tax (regressive though that would be), and above all develop new sources of revenue drawn painlessly from the private sector. They need to make individuals and corporations offers that cannot be refused. We already have precedents. In 2001, Dennis Tito paid $20,000,000 for a space trip with Russian cosmonauts (let's sell a few American-directed trips to the Space Station), and in 2000 and 2001, respectively, Ken Behring and Catherine Reynolds gave to the Smithsonian $80 and $38 million in exchange for a little name recognition and a say in how the money would be used (let's encourage more of that). Quite seriously, I suggest the following:
Cities and states could employ the fantasy-camp concept and for a tidy sum allow individuals to serve a week, with much fanfare and publicity, as honorary governor, mayor, police chief, or ferry boat captain.
Oil companies could contribute funds to road construction in exchange for signage like "This exit provided by Exxon."
Surely the brotherhood of workers would be glad to see a portion of their dues go to the national treasury if annually the President were to intone, "My State of the Union message is brought to you tonight by the Teamsters."
Taking a cue from NASCAR cars and drivers, all government-owned buses and trains could be wrapped in ads.
Taking a cue from Phil Michelson and other male and female golfers, and from the WNBA's Seattle Storm (which has the word "bing" above the numbers on the front of its game jerseys), all high school and college sports team uniforms could be covered with sports-related ads for things like LA Fitness Centers and Metr-X Protein Powder.
Taking a cue from NFL television broadcasts, parts of high school and college games--like quarters, overtimes, timeouts, and intermissions--could be "sold" to sponsors. Announcers at stadiums and arenas could say, "This kickoff/tipoff is brought to you by Adidas," or "Halftime is brought to you by McDonalds. You and the players deserve a break today." And, of course, visual ads could run in alternation with statistics on the Jumbo-Tron screens.
Park departments could persuade companies like Target to paint their shimmering logos on the bottoms of swimming pools.
Library resource persons could wear large "Lenscrafter" buttons on their shirts.
Government office workers could wear "Staples" or "Office Max" buttons on their shirts.
Police could wear NRA patches on their uniforms.
And, for a trillion dollars, wouldn't the Microsoft Windows flag logo look good tucked into the lower right corner of Old Glory itself?
Well, maybe that's going a bit too far. But, tacky though it may seem to some, I advocate that governements commercialize themselves in order to restore the social services that we need and want. We must adjust to the times. Taxation may be anathema, but selling naming rights and advertisements and special privileges fits America's enterprising ethos like baseball, hot dogs, and Chevrolet.
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