Enough of Montana “Slush Funds” & Government Owning Private Businesses

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There was a time when conservatives believed government had no business running businesses. Apparently, that quaint idea has gone the way of the rotary telephone. Today, both Washington and Helena increasingly seem to believe government should be a shareholder, venture capitalist, real-estate investor, private-equity partner and corporate financier.

Why? Because apparently, they don’t trust us with our own money.
The fundamental problem is simple: government exists to protect our rights, enforce laws and perform legitimate public functions—not to compete with the private sector or speculate with money taken from taxpayers.

When Government Becomes a Venture Capitalist
Washington has increasingly taken ownership positions in private companies, including Intel, U.S. Steel, MP Materials and Lithium Americas, among others.
Whatever the justification, the question remains:

When did the United States Treasury become a venture-capital fund?
In a free-market economy, private investors take the risks, private companies raise capital and private shareholders receive the profits—or suffer the losses. Now government wants a seat at the table.

And government never brings just a checkbook. It brings regulations, political influence and the ability to tax the very people competing in the marketplace. That’s not exactly capitalism. It’s government capitalism wearing a necktie. It is also a step towards socialism, and state control.

Montana Has Its Own Version
Montana has also accumulated enormous investment pools containing stocks, bonds, real estate, private investments, commodities and other assets. There is a legitimate role for government to prudently invest pension and trust assets that legally belong to beneficiaries. That’s fiduciary management.

But that’s very different from government accumulating excess taxpayer money and deciding it can do a better job investing it than the citizens who earned it. Montana recently enjoyed roughly a $2 billion budget surplus.

My first question is rather simple:
If government has billions more than it needs, why did it take the money in the first place? The answer shouldn’t be, “Let’s create an investment fund.”

It should be: Lower taxes. Permanently.

Give the money back to families and businesses so they can pay down debt, invest, save, expand and make their own economic decisions. Imagine that—letting citizens manage their own money.

The Constitutional Problem The federal government possesses limited, enumerated powers. The Constitution does not contain a general permission slip for Washington to become a shareholder in private companies simply because politicians declare an industry “strategic.” The question isn’t whether a government investment might make money.The question is:

Where does government get the authority to do it? Once politicians decide government should own semiconductor companies because semiconductors are important, what’s next? Lithium? Steel? Energy? Housing? Food? Water?

Pretty soon we’re going to discover that government has become the world’s largest shareholder because everything has been declared “strategic.” And once government owns businesses, those businesses have a very understandable reason to become interested in who controls government. That is a dangerous road.

And Then There Are the Stadiums The same mentality produces corporate welfare in the form of government-funded sports stadiums. Working taxpayers are asked to subsidize billion-dollar facilities for billionaire franchise owners and millionaire athletes. If professional sports are profitable businesses, they should raise private capital.

If investors believe a stadium will make money, let investors finance it. And nowhere in the Constitution does it say: “Congress shall provide for luxury boxes, parking garages and professional football stadiums.”I checked.

Trust the People This isn’t fundamentally a Republican or Democrat issue. It’s a limited-government issue. Government shouldn’t be our investment adviser, venture capitalist, landlord, corporate shareholder or sports promoter. Its job is to protect our rights, enforce the law and provide the essential services the Constitution and laws legitimately require. Money belongs first to the people who earn it.

Government gets what it legitimately needs to perform its proper functions—not whatever it can extract and then justify investing. If Helena or Washington has billions left over, the answer isn’t to hire somebody to invest it. The answer is to stop taking it. Maybe it’s time we tried something truly radical:

Trust the people with their own money. After all, they earned it. And they probably can’t do much worse with it than government bureaucrats!