The Politics of Unaskable Questions

The most common, and worst, defense of public spending is an appeal to our "values."

San Antonio City Hall. The council will decide this fall which programs survive a $158 million shortfall. Photo: City of San Antonio via Flickr

There is one argument that consistently resurfaces in favor of public spending, and it is made all over America in similar words: what would it say about our values if we cut this?

It isn’t so much a real argument as it is a rhetorical genre, and as we stare down San Antonio’s budget crunch, a number of people have deployed it locally. On Friday, City Council Member Sukh Kaur wrote the latest example: an op-ed in the Express-News to shield Ready to Work, the San Antonio Education Partnership, and the San Antonio Book Festival from likely coming budget cuts, claiming that a budget “is a values statement written in dollars.” But the councilwoman is not alone. In modern politics, practically every defense of any public program in America becomes a moral indictment of those who would see its funding reduced.

The hallmark of such a defense is that it uses substantive evidence of success only as window dressing, with the core argument a lofty appeal to our conscience. The Book Festival and the Education Partnership must be funded because we "should keep our promises to the San Antonians who need these programs most." The Partnership helps students "see college and careers as within reach." Ready to Work must be preserved because ending it "cancels a return." Each argument is what the funding says about who we are and about which kind of city we intend to be.

The problem with this is that when you cloak policy in self-justifying morality, you cannot be seen to reasonably argue against it. Take for example the cited poll results from 2024 (done by an activist group) that found 76 percent of respondents supporting increased funding for youth programs. Shocker. This poll asked people whether they like good things. People will naturally always choose to do good things. Framed this way, morality becomes the whole basis of the argument.

The whole defense is written in “we.” What we believe, what we value, which kind of city we are, what we would be saying if we cut. The “we” hijacks the moral standing of a million and a half people and reduces everything to an absolute. An official who flattens the whole community by mandating what their values must be is not representing the community at all.

To be clear, this complaint is not really about Ready to Work. The Civic’s position on that program is documented, and readers can judge the record themselves. The complaint is the very nature of this defense and what it does. Councilwoman Kaur’s strongest substantive point is a study finding the program returns $125 for every dollar spent, with a huge total economic impact. But even this doesn’t pass basic scrutiny: if the city possessed an instrument—any instrument—that returned $125 on the dollar, the only rational budget would route the entire general fund through it, and the fact that nobody proposes this while multiple officials support winding the program down tells you what the figure is worth. But that figure is just an obligatory appeal to authority, the core of the argument is moral.

A program judged on its performance will likely be cut if it underperforms. A program that represents our values cannot be cut at all, no matter what it does, because every cut becomes a referendum on whether or not we are “good” people. Therefore, the survival strategy for public programs is simple: stop being a program, start being a symbol. Symbols do not have to perform.

The genre’s function, really, is to protect the officeholder from the hardest part of the job, which is to think critically about whether we get our money’s worth and act on the answer, whatever it costs.

And the same genre can also defend whatever its user already supports. For example, what would it say about our commitment to safety if we cut a police budget? Or, what would it say about our civic pride if we rejected the new arena? And, what would it say about our respect for taxpayers if we increased taxes? Everyone is an auditor of the other side’s budget and a steward of their own. For example: Councilwoman Kaur scrutinizes police overtime that ran to nearly double its budget with exactly the arithmetic she withholds from programs that she favors.

The truth is, every public assistance program ever funded has helped someone. That is the byproduct of public spending, true of every line item in the budget, which is exactly why “it helps someone” or “it is the right thing to do” can’t be the bar for success. The responsible public official must recognize both that these programs are real, and real is not the same as worth it. Defaulting to a moral defense of the spending is actually declining to govern by keeping serious analysis from ever happening. San Antonio has run this liturgy for decades and remains one of the poorest big cities in America, which is what a politics of unaskable questions eventually costs.

Councilwoman Kaur proposes a test for her colleagues: "If we say this matters, are we willing to pay for it?" Here is a better test: we paid for it, did it do what we asked? San Antonio has been willing to pay, forever. Willingness to pay is the cheapest of the civic virtues, requiring nothing but other people's money.

More important than willingness to pay is good civic judgment: evaluate what we paid for, retain what works and terminate what doesn’t, regardless of political convenience. A budget is indeed a values statement—let’s make ours say that we measure what we pay for.