Ed Yetman reports:
I don’t know if this is a new high or a new low, but it is something I’ve never seen before. Somehow, USCF has managed to find a way to get the U.S. government to pay membership fees for senior members. That’s right, Uncle Sam wants you to play chess so bad, he’s willing to pay for it. Here are the details:
Normally, I would applaud USCF finding such a strange niche and using it to promote USCF membership. But I’m having qualms.
My first concern is this: whenever the government subsidizes something, the subsidy distorts the free-market value. The sky-high cost of college tuition is such an example. USCF membership for seniors will go up, and that will lead, inevitably, to corruption. Also, you subsidize something, you get more of it: how many of these new USCF senior members will never play in a tournament? They will have full voting rights; I’m chary about letting people vote for things they have no stake in at all. Do we want USCF elections to be decided by people who could not care less about tournament chess? Oh wait—we already have that problem.
My second concern is the inescapable mission-creep of such things. How long before we have subsidies for other classes of players, like women and children? What then?
The leadership of USCF is already pretty far away from the traditional tournament player. This will only make it worse.
You're spot on, Ed.
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