The Taxpayers’ Toad

One definition of a “toad” is an object of disgust.  That’s the reaction a lot of people had to the Army’s plan to spend $600,000 on public art including a sculpture of a 10 foot-tall fairy riding a gurgling toad.

It wasn’t necessarily the portrayal of a giant amphibian that made people upset.  What constitutes art is a matter of personal preference.  I’d rather look at a John Deere tractor than a Picasso painting, for example.

What was irritating was the expenditure of taxpayer money on something so unnecessary, on a construction project that’s already $1 billion, at a time of a staggering national debt, for an item that only a handful of people will see.  

The toad sculpture was meant to improve the look of a bus depot serving a new military building under construction in Alexandria, Va., outside of Washington, D.C.  One estimate is that only about 2,500 daily commuters would see the statue.  At one point, the Army defended the public art projects in an email to my staff as representing “less than 0.1% of the cost of the $1 billion dollar federal complex.”

It might be true that $600,000 is pocket change for the Pentagon, but that misses the point.  The taxpayers can’t afford frivolity, and they shouldn’t be asked to fund it.  In this budgetary environment, just about everything is on the chopping block.  A toad sculpture for a bus station is about as low a priority as can be imagined.

There are many creative ways to dress up public places without squeezing the taxpayers.  Non-profit groups attract donations for worthy projects.  Artists might even donate their work for a special use.  Veterans and active members of the military are among the artists whose work would be logical in a military bus station. 

I hope the Army and the city of Alexandria, which wants public art within its borders, look into these no-cost-to-taxpayers approaches now that the Army has scrapped the toad sculpture.  After media reports and scrutiny from my office, the Army told me the toad project is off.

For now, the toad is out of the public eye and if a private buyer comes forward, maybe headed for someone’s backyard, where it belongs.

I’ll continue to monitor what happens with this situation.  And I plan to look at how much taxpayer money for art is attached to all federal government building projects.