Actually, it’s way simpler than that. I also can not remember the last time I disagreed with Dr. Sowell, but municipal golf courses have one main purpose: To raise the property values in a municipality. If they create revenues through greens fees, great. However, municipal golf courses (at least in the northeast) typically come into being when an existing private club is having financial difficulty. When the municipality buys the course and makes it public, it becomes a selling point for future residential transactions. Thus, the course not only pays for itself through greens fees, but also adds to municipal taxes as everyone’s property increases in value. It’s simple economics. Plus, a golf course looks a lot nicer than a few more strip malls.
So the private club has trouble making the thing work (probably because of their tax burden), but the town can come in, spend the taxpayer money to buy it (or is that extort it from some private citizens), and make money where the private company could not???? This also makes me wonder how much the taxpayer spends to raise the value of his property. Judging from other public investments the taxpayer probably spends $1.00 to raise his property value 50 cents.
As I told Seaplaner: There’s a name for those who enjoy the benefits they force others to pay for: Liberals.