Magnifisyncopathological

And not just Austin residents' money.

I didn't pay any attention when I learned the mayors lobby had produced a massive document pointing out all the wonderful things that could be done with other people's money. I knew reading it might drive me nuts so I moved on to other things.

Well, now that Drudge linked to the Wall Street Journal article pointing out that Mayor Will Wynn wants $886,000 for the "Raul Alvarez Disc Golf Course", I decided to peer deeper into the abyss. Here's some of the socialism Austin's government desires:

1. $190,000,000 to expand Capitol Metro's MetroRail Red Line
   
2. $127,500,000 for the Waller Creek Tunnel (WCT) project
   
3. $80,000,000 to upgrade existing MetroRail commuter rail line
   
4. $60,000,000 for more urban rail equipment
   
5. $36,000,000 to replace Capitol Metro buses
   
6. $25,000,000 for a Public Safety Training facility
   
7. $20,000,000 for cleaning the Hornsby Bend Biosolids Facility Digester
   
8. $20,000,000 to upgrade Austin ISD technology
   
9. $18,000,000 to close a pedestrian/bike gap along Lady Bird Lake
   
10. $15,000,000 to give poor AISD students broadband at home
    
11. $13,300,000 to work on 21,000 feet of water main from Red River to UT
    
12. $11,700,000 for an overflow parking lot at the airport
    
13. $11,100,000 for a new Park 'n Ride facility

John Hrncir, government-relations officer, says the project list "was put together on very short notice," and "we are not going to submit anything that is questionable when we seek actual funding."

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Of personal interest to me is the $500,000 requested for "Fort Branch Erosion/Flood Control Voluntary Buyouts (Demolition)." That's where I live and I damned well want to know what these people have planned for my neighborhood.

I know that the following analysis lends credence to these bullshit figures, assumes their accuracy, and might even be seen as an endorsement of the disgusting sausage-making process that is represented by local officials begging the central government to borrow (tax the future) to spend today...but whatever. I want to throw this out there.

The grand total Wynn wants cuts in a just above a billion dollars. He says sucking that money from the rest of the country (NOTE TO NEWS EDITORS: NOT "from Washington") will create 14,322.50 jobs. That half job, by the way, will come from the $175,000 requested for the Zilker Botanical Garden Trail Lighting Project. Is that supposed to be a part-time position or something?

Some basic Excel wizardry completed, here are some things to think about.

• More than half of the projects (87 out of 162) cost at least $100,000 per each job Wynn claims they'll create.
• The overall average direct taxpayer cost of each project would be $72,075. Of course, that doesn't factor inflation, cost overruns, delays, etc.
• Two ($2.4m for traffic signals & $290k to renovate the Carver Museum) lack job-creation estimates and one (the $60m for rail equipment) literally says zero.
• The most expensive project on a per-job basis is the $36m to replace and expand city buses. Wynn says this will create 15 jobs, which means each job will cost the country $2,400,000.
• The least expensive project on a per-job basis is the $25k for demolition along Santa Rita St. Wynn says this will create 6 jobs, which means each job will cost the country $4,167.
• The kind folks at the Census Bureau said the median yearly household income in the United States is about $50,000, which means that Wynn wants 124 projects that'll exceed that figure on a per-job basis.

I'm also aware that most of the job-creation claimed in this document is temporary construction stuff, shoveled to well-connected civil engineering contractors. That's something I don't see mentioned often enough about these things: these aren't jobs in the sense of a proper career. Some will last a few weeks, some maybe a fiscal quarter or two. Pulling out every dusty, graft-machine-and-neighborhood-association-approved wish list item doesn't generate the kind of fundamental economic growth that stimulus proponents assume will happen. It's a layer of icing over a hollow cupcake.

Obviously, I think the entire enterprise is morally and practically bankrupt from top to bottom. Threatening police violence against tomorrow's taxpayers in Oregon, Hawaii, Houston, and Chicago to pay for AISD roofing repairs today is absurd.

Lots of "change" everywhere. The lot of it amounts to shifting decimal points.