What are the best kinds of niche public spending?

[Admiral Yi]

Building off Brain's jab in the Archeology thread about bobos having their free museums subsidized by poorer folks taxes.

There are some types of public spending that are pretty universal, like national defense.  There are others that only benefit a small subset of the population.  Of these, which in your opinion are the best?  If you were dictator, which of these types of projects would you spend public funds on?

I vote for dog runs and skate parks.  Both would be hard to do commercially, neither set of users skews very wealthy, not a lot of recurring costs.

[Tonitrus]

National Parks.

Space exploration.

[Maladict]

Museum ships

[Jacob]

I'm in favour of a sweeping broad range of niche spending, ensuring that a wide variety of niche interests and socio-economic demographics are supported

So I'm in favour on spending on things like kids enrichment activities (arts, drama, tech, sports), on a wide range of museums (national history, archeology, fine art, craft, industry, local history, ships, knitting, living history, and any other niches), pensioner social clubs, public libraries, community centres and sports & recreation for the wider community, and so on.

Rather than viewing it as a competition between different preferences, ensuring that there's support for a wide range of interests and activities. That way it allows folks to be exposed to things outside of their supposed interests without feeling their demographic is being shortchanged.

Then again, I'm from a place where there's a widespread belief that the state but should and can succeed at looking after the needs of the population beyond the basics (the poverty rate in Denmark is 0.3%). Things like roleplaying groups can (and do) receive public funding, for example. Basically, imagine the types of student groups that can receive funding at a university but on a society wide basis.

So my perspective is "all of them" as long as they meet a baseline of community interest and proper governance.

[Jacob]

That said, personally my biggest interest is probably history museums of various sorts.

[Razgovory]

The program that pays for my psychiatric medications.  That has turned out really handy.

[Josquius]

Whatever makes sense looking at things holistically rather than doing the typical conservative thing and just looking at immediate 2 dimensional cause and effect.

With museums for instance, the poor are not the ones taxed for them and though footfall for richer groups remains higher, the increase for poorer groups from giving them access makes sense. Uplifting the poor should be a primary goal of any decent government.

To be really niche my favoured never going to happen but would be great policy is community pubs.

[Zanza]

I think the institutions of a democratic society should be fairly free on what they spend public money. As long as limits regarding corruption, anti-discrimination etc. are upheld, I do not see a big difference between various types of public spending on niche interests. It only becomes problematic if interest groups have too much influence over those institutions.

In general, I feel public money should mainly be spent on not-for-profit topics. I see a subsidy for a multinational corporation more critical than for a local theater, NGO, sports club, zoo or whatever else.

[The Larch]

With this discussion I'm reminded of this particular sketch:

[crazy canuck]

I wonder if Yi recognizes that his question requires the answer to accept his implied assertion that government has only has a limited role.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I'm not really sure what I'd think of as niche spending

With this discussion I'm reminded of this particular sketch:

Yeah - plus ca change

[mongers]

The program that pays for my psychiatric medications.  That has turned out really handy.

For niche spending in question, I'd go for the maintenance of old, and buliding new public footpaths.

[Grey Fox]

  

All of them. ALL. OF. THEM.

[Admiral Yi]

Porn?  Prostitution?  Recreational drugs?

[Barrister]

Outdoor ice rinks