I had an interesting conversation with a friend today about a boardwalk that has been constructed on the beach in her city. It’s a lovely walkway — I’ve been on it — and it was built with funds designated some years ago. You know… back when cities were flush (or at least solvent).
But a beach boardwalk rests upon sand. Which blows. And so, the obvious is occurring: the boardwalk is being covered.
My friend isn’t particularly bothered about this (yet), but while out walking, she encountered someone who is. He wondered aloud to her when the city was going to get somebody out there to take care of it.
Cities, of course, are not rolling in money right now, and her city in particular is having to cut services and benefits to keep going. And so she asked him why she thought the city needed to spend the little money they have on something its citizens could easily do?
“Get a neighborhood committee together, get some brooms, and go sweep it off if it’s bugging you.”
You can guess where I’m going with this by now, right?
Nobody likes taxes — and that’s a truth that the political parties have used as bait for many years. But it’s meaningless hot air, as long as people are unwilling to take on the tasks and responsibilities themselves.
I hear lots of talk lately about how things were done “back in the day”, when government was local. Yet every single time a bond comes up in a city, there are people fighting against it. Do folks not realize that “back in the day”, the citizens performed mandatory civic tasks like roadwork, or common-area maintenance?
When’s the last time you saw anybody mowing their own neighborhood common ground?
The direct result of lower taxes is smaller government — an outcome I’m all in favor of. But I really, seriously doubt that society is prepared to pick up the slack.