A Bridge, Not a Crutch

By: J. David Chapman, PhD, / August 7, 2026

One of the most fascinating debates in public policy is not whether government should be involved in solving a problem. It is how long that involvement should last.

I was recently reading an article about sustainability in commercial real estate. For years, energy efficient buildings benefited from a combination of market forces and government support. Tax credits, reporting requirements, benchmarking tools, and various incentive programs encouraged developers and property owners to invest in sustainable building practices. Today, many of those programs are being scaled back or eliminated.

What surprised some observers is that sustainability itself is not disappearing. Why? Because many of the practices that were once promoted through incentives now make economic sense on their own. A building that uses less energy costs less to operate. Lower operating expenses improve profitability. More profitable buildings are generally worth more money. It turns out that many sustainability initiatives survive not because government requires them, but because the marketplace has discovered their value.

That observation got me thinking about government programs more broadly. In my view, government has an important role to play in addressing challenges, encouraging innovation, and helping communities achieve goals that the private sector may initially overlook. The question is not whether government should ever intervene. The question is whether those interventions create a path toward independence.

Too often, programs are created without a clear exit strategy. What begins as a temporary incentive becomes a permanent expectation. What starts as a bridge becomes a crutch. The most successful public policies are often the ones that make themselves unnecessary.

Consider economic development incentives. The objective should not be to subsidize an area forever. The objective should be to create enough momentum that private investment eventually takes over. The same principle applies to infrastructure, housing initiatives, workforce development programs, and countless other public investments.

Here in Oklahoma, we have seen examples of this concept. Communities invest in roads, parks, public spaces, downtown revitalization efforts, and infrastructure improvements not because government wants to own the future, but because those investments can create an environment where private businesses and residents choose to invest their own capital.

When that happens, success is measured not by how long the incentive remains in place, but by how little it is needed in the future. The sustainability movement may be teaching us an important lesson. If a practice only survives because government requires it, perhaps it was never truly sustainable in the first place. But if an idea can stand on its own once the incentives disappear, then government may have done exactly what it was supposed to do: provide a temporary bridge to a functioning market.

The goal should never be dependence. The goal should be self-sufficiency.

Dr. J. David Chapman is Chair of Finance & Professor of Real Estate at The University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu)