Maybe the Milwaukee Brewers can teach us something about government spending.
The Brewers’ payroll ranks 19th among the 30 Major League clubs. Their World Series opponents, the Tampa Bay Rays, rank 28th. And the team that the Rays dispatched for the American League pennant, the Cleveland Guardians, ranked dead last. Meanwhile, the LA Dodgers’ payroll was much larger than those three teams combined. The Dodgers can watch the Series from the comfort of their mansions.
Line this news up with the turmoil in France. That country is the Dodgers of government. The French spend 57% of their GDP on government and its services, compared to 37% in America. Apparently, it has not purchased them happiness.
The mantra of my party is that everything is “underfunded.” Schools, health care, conservation land purchases, every social service program you can name — all underfunded, usually “woefully” so. Meanwhile, Republicans mostly want to just say no to all that. Except that they’ll spend like crazy on the Pentagon, ICE and all kinds of vital national projects, like ballrooms and arches.
What’s out of fashion in both parties these days is any sense of value. Sure, spend money where you need to, but tie it closely to results. What’s needed is true, sober, objective efficiency and accountability. Before you ask for more, make the most of what you’ve already got. The DOGE example is not what I have in mind. That was theatre.
Let’s take education as an example. There is no correlation between how much a state spends and actual results. Average per pupil spending is $17,600. New York spends more than twice that ($37,000) and its test scores are no better than average. The District of Columbia spends $31,000 per pupil and ranks near the bottom in student achievement.
Ah, you say, but that doesn’t account for the demographics of student populations. So, what about Mississippi? That state spends only $12,000 per student and yet ranks near the top nationally in fourth grade reading and academic recovery from the COVID shutdowns. According to my good friend AI: “Some low-spending states (like Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi) achieve much higher reading and math performance relative to their funding ranks through targeted literacy interventions and accountability laws.”
In other words, it’s not how much you spend, but how you invest the dollars you have. To return to baseball, the Brewers didn’t spend a dime on high-priced free agents at the peak of their careers. Guys like that will give you two or three of their best years, but they demand very rich long-term deals, so you wind up paying them top dollar for their years of declining production. By contrast, teams like the Brewers invested in their farm systems and when they saw a player that had great potential they locked him down in a long-term contract — Jackson Chourio, Cooper Pratt and Luis Lara are all examples. And when they saw a player headed for free agency — Willy Adames, Freddy Paralta, Corbin Burnes, Josh Hader — they dealt him while they still had leverage and got good value in return. They also have done a remarkable job of rehabilitating the careers of once promising players who never quite reached their potential — like Jake Bauers and David Hamilton.
Let’s not be France. Let’s not be the Dodgers. Let us be the Brewers.
