Double Dipping Into Moral Hazard

A Walk In The Park

Yesterday was one of those days that make it impossible to imagine living anywhere else. We drove down to South Platte Park and Carter Nature Center, the expansive open space area leading from Mineral all the way to Chatfield Reservoir. A paved bike path side by side with a gravel trail for walking meanders along the Platte, under C-470, and up to a huge leash-free area directly below the dam. That is just one route, mind you. There must be half a dozen optional paths and countless river accesses along the way.

I was able to wear hiking shorts (I am determined to only wear shorts from this day forward) and a cool yellow sweat shirt that I had to take off in the 70 degree weather. There were lots of white legged folks out there with us riding bicycles, walking dogs, fishing, taking photos, bathing in the woods, as Katherine likes to call it. We just felt so damn proud to live in a community that has oases like this. Then, this being an election year and all, we realized that there were lots of folks who would not share our appreciation of this flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars. Interestingly, we noticed very few of those types (read: grumpy white men) on the trail. There were some. You could tell because they wore long pants with their hands in the pockets of their windbreakers. If they wore hats, they were invariably baseball hats sitting too high on their brows, like they were waiting for the bus to Black Hawk.

Then we started worrying about Moral Hazard, the idea that some undeserving folks might get a benefit paid for with our tax dollars directed toward an otherwise worthy goal. For instance, while most individuals receiving unemployment still look for work, others just sit back and take advantage of the system. There were probably some people using that trail who didn't pay their fair share in taxes! I saw a few people fishing who could have been illegal! There was one group zooming past us on bikes who looked suspiciously like Muslims. And there were surely some walkers who made so little money that they paid no income tax at all, only payroll tax and that, thanks to all those liberals in Congress, has been halved!

Suddenly, I realized that I was one of those people enjoying the benefits of Moral Hazard. And I began to feel guilty. I remembered Limbaugh, Hannity, Rosen (Limbaugh-Lite), et. al. blasting away at public employees and how our (largely) undeserved benefits and salaries were leading the country to financial ruin. I'm was one of those employees! Worse yet, I receive a tidy pension from PERA (talk about four letter words). I am, according to those pundits, on the dole. Why Mike Rosen has even asserted that people like me do not really pay taxes at all! All we do--I think this is his argument--is get a percentage of our pay withheld which is then immediately returned to us in the form of pay.

I am not only a prime example of Moral Hazard, but I am double dipping as well. I'm using the beautiful parks paid for by taxpayer dollars, but since I get all my "taxes" back, I haven't paid my fair share. Yet there I was shamelessly using the place.

I picked up a cigarette butt on the side of the trail and carried it to the next trash can. It was the least I could do.