DC’s elected officials often give mixed messages when it comes to talking about the budget. On one hand, they take great pride in limiting spending growth from one year to the next. That’s “fiscal discipline.” On the other hand, they brag about all the money they put toward things like schools, libraries and parks.

The message seems to be that more government spending in general is bad, but more money for popular services is terrific. But isn’t more spending on the programs people want the same thing as more government spending? We’re confused.

Any parent will tell you it takes a lot to help children develop into successful adults, and it doesn’t come cheap. Parents put whatever they can afford toward things like quality day care, piano lessons, tutoring, braces, summer camps – because these are essential investments in a child’s future.

The same is true for government – investments matter. The amount we allocate to public safety and education affects how many police are on our streets and the student-teacher ratios in our classrooms. Our suburban neighbors get this. They pay a lot in taxes – more than DC residents, actually – because they want high-quality public services.

You Can't Get Something for Nothing
When Mayor Fenty lobbied to take control of the schools, he repeatedly said money was not the issue – it was just a matter of management. Within months, though, he devoted $81 million more to DC public schools. The school budget for next year includes even more new funding, for teachers (art, music and P.E.), counselors and facilities maintenance. The mayor and chancellor have not abandoned management reforms, but they clearly recognize that schools need more resources to do their job well.

When leaders downplay the need for resources, they feed into the notion that government is a four-letter word – rather than the source of services that residents need and want. The message is that you can get more services without paying for them if we simply eliminate all the waste. While there undoubtedly are efficiencies to be gained, that alone is unlikely to do it. In the end, you get what you pay for.

The “something for nothing” logic pops up all the time.

A business owner testified before the council this spring seeking tax relief for small businesses. He also pointed out that the parks near his store need sprucing up. He didn’t seem to get that cutting revenues makes it harder to find more money for parks.

Mayor Fenty has set an ambitious goal of helping all of the 25,000 households on a housing waiting list. Yet the newly adopted budget adds only $2 million for rent subsidies, enough to serve just a few hundred families. Without real investments each year, the nonprofits willing to build new affordable housing will have to mothball planned projects, and families on the waiting list will stay there.

The point isn’t to criticize. Instead, the point is that better services and a better quality of life for DC residents have a cost. More government spending is okay if we get more of what we want.

That’s where reluctance may come in – from a sense that spending more won’t get us much. DC taxpayers, like any investors, want to know that money appropriated is well spent. And surely there is room for improvement. As a start, the DC budget needs to become a lot more transparent. Very basic information, like the number of people served in key programs, is nowhere to be found in the budget, making it hard to hold anyone accountable for money spent.

A P.S. on Earmarks in the DC budget
The council just adopted the final budget for 2009. There are some notable changes to what the mayor proposed, including a new health insurance program for uninsured residents and new funding to start moving the District toward the goal of universal pre-K.

But it's also notable how much time and energy – and money – was devoted to budget earmarks. The mayor proposed $40 million in earmarks, and the council raised it to $64 million, covering 150 organizations. That may be just 1 percent of the budget, but it's problematic for many reasons beyond giving money to a favored few and bypassing competition. Earmark recipients may start to rely on DC funds and do less to seek private sector support. Getting an earmark also may make groups less willing to speak out on important policy issues for fear of offending their benefactor.

Another problem is that councilmembers end up spending time protecting their earmarks rather than pushing for a sound comprehensive budget, and a councilmember who fights for his or her earmarks cannot criticize anyone else for their outrageous earmarks. All of this adds up to a poor use of public dollars, a lack of transparency and more cynicism.

The council has acknowledged the need for earmark reform. To their credit, they have adopted some recommendations from their policy office, such as requiring recipients to provide a detailed scope of work and to prove they are in good financial standing. This doesn’t solve some of the larger issues, however, and in fact may just make it safer to do more earmarks.

The council should go further and limit the practice. One recommendation from the policy office is to set aside a pot of funds for community-related purposes and establish a formal and competitive grants process. This is based on current practices in Montgomery County, which also has proposals evaluated by a panel of residents and made available to the public. Such a process would inject much-needed transparency into the process and also ensure public dollars are in fact benefiting the community.