Voters in a desolate part of New Mexico soon will decide whether they want to increase taxes on themselves in order to help build a private spaceport. Here’s how the Wash Post describes things:

In a referendum, the people of Las Cruces and surrounding Dona Ana County will be voting on a proposal to slightly raise their county sales tax, a highly unpopular idea these days. But in return, southern New Mexico, one of the poorest regions in the nation, would jump on a fast track to hosting the world’s first all-commercial spaceport.
If the effort succeeds, a desert valley used by a handful of ranchers could become Spaceport America — a 21st-century portal for thousands of people hoping to blast into space as tourists, explorers, researchers and, maybe someday, as commuters to destinations halfway around the world. …
Spaceport advocates, from Gov. Bill Richardson (D) to most of Dona Ana County’s commissioners, the local business community and many at New Mexico State University, are working hard to convince the members of the community that private space travel is an idea whose time has finally come — to them.

On the one hand, it sounds like a great opportunity for a rural area. On the other hand, why does an “all commercial” venture need a taxpayer subsidy? Isn’t that doubly true if private spaceports really are, as advocates say, “an idea whose time has finally come”? Private space travel is attracing big-time venture capitalists, such as Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. Should the residents of “one of the poorest regions in the nation” subsidize their highly speculative businesses? I don’t think so.