The Role of Government
on 08/14/2007 at 12:47 PM
Yes we have the same thing with this stupid idea cooked up here to build a new jail. The jail ‘tax’ failed on the ballot in Nov. so two (of the three) county commissioners got together and made a new tax (higher too) and the citizens went wild. They needed 28 thousand signatures to require that this tax goes onto the Nov ballot (again) and ended up with over 50 thousand. The two commissioners are still claiming that the solution to crime is a new jail (they claim the whole issue is ‘set free’ criminals - not the fact that city council neutered the police after the mob rule rioters were paid off - and that it is the city that is the prime problem not the entire county and so on).
Low and behold - even though the jail tax (our local liberal papers have been in ‘support’ of it all along) got articles and op eds since the beginning - the fact that quietly the city/county have ‘found’ the money to pay the jails (lockups, county, city and nearby Butler county) for the needed bed space -by cutting pork - barely got a paragraph. So that goes to why do we need to raise the taxes if by cutting the pork and waste - you are making it through?
And so it goes - I agree it is not the 1.5 cent tax increase (the amount) it is the principle. Cut out the pork, earmarks, waste and monies going to illegals and then if roads, schools and police need some more money - ok. But no libs just want to keep adding and adding and exert no discipline, control or simple common sense. The arts - I heard a commentor say it best - elementary and h.s. arts programs OK - to fund museums or adult artists - no way.
Simple common sense - which seems to escape liberals. Always.
The only place for government supported art is in government buildings and property. I have no problem with that. However there is no charter, as you put it, for governments to fund the arts. My ex is an artist illustrator. Manhy of her friends are artists. They often bemoan a percieved lack of finding for the arts. When my ex asks why the government should pay them to do art for its own sake, they get down right irrate at the question.
Not that the only thing the government is pernitted to do is just what is written in the constitution; after all, where did Jefferson get the authority to make the Louisianna Purchase? It was quite a question for him and was not yet settled when they made the deal as the French were getting antsy and might have sold to Spain.
It seems to me that arts centers and theaters ought to be able to support themselves with ticket sales(and related transactions such as concessions, souvenirs, etc) without dipping into public funds.
Then again, I view 99% of non defense-related federal spending as pork, providing services that are better left to private citizens or businesses.
Government spending has to be a balancing act. You’ve got the minimalists like Zebster on one side, the maximusts (socialists) on the other, and a whole huge herd of absent minded sheep in the middle who don’t pay attention and often confuse “do the right thing” with “wouldn’t it be nice if”.
There may not be any official mandate for such spending, but unless the rules expressly forbid it, it will happen. The key is keeping it under control.
So any government winds up with some discretionary spending. I don’t mind it if its small, and I’d like it better if it wasn’t seen as Earmarks and Perks for some rep’s zone of influence. The way I’d do it ... say your state has 1 million taxpayers. $10 from each person goes into the fund (not an extra $10, you take it out of the existing pile) and that gets divvied up ... say you have 100 districts ... 100 into $10,000,000 works out to $100,000 per district and your rep works with a district council to apportion things. That way it stays pretty much local.
The problem gets ugly when the amount per person slice starts getting too large. And naturally, in the Republic of Drew, this program would never run if the government was budgeting a deficit. Heck, I’d cut it off pronto if the budget exceeded 85% of revenue.
Now here you go confusing fact with reality. My understanding of the principles our republic is founded on says that the government should stay out of certain areas, but then, how often are politicians actually interested in principles?
Lots of politicians may even mean well (ok, I’m giving the benefit of the doubt here), but fail to see how their constituency views their actions. Especially here in California, it’s pretty hard to unseat an incumbent, so the elections don’t usually work. I can give 2 examples from my local politics.
The first involved a lady on the L.A. City Council. She’s a nice lady and generally seems to try to look out for her constituents. I was at a community meeting, where she floated the idea of a tiny addition to our sales tax to fund something good for our city. She was visibly shaken when virtually everyone at the meeting nuked her proposal. I got to talk with her briefly after the meeting. What she hadn’t understood, was that no one had a problem with what she wanted to do, but everyone has had it with our taxes and we don’t want any more, no matter how small the increase or how good the cause. Like I said, she was actually pretty good and even she didn’t get it.
The second comes from the California highway system. Some years ago, the people of California voted a special tax to pay for repairs to our freeways and roads. The State Legislature hijacked the money into the general fund to pay for something else. Therefore the highways are still getting worse........and here’s the cherry on top.......there are huge projects going on to upgrade the landscaping along the freeways that need serious repair, while the potholes get bigger and bigger! Who cares about the landscaping? First and foremost, I want a good road to drive on. Landscaping is a nice touch, but not strictly necessary.
Reality? Principle? These are things that even the best of our politicians just don’t seem to grasp. In the meantime giving money to a cute little cause like the Artisans Center sure feels nice and makes a lot of people smile.
Mr. Christian, could you add a puking smiley to the collection? It would really sum up a lot of my opinions on our politicians.
Well Scooter, no, not the FEDERAL government. Most of us live with at least 4 layers of government - federal, state, county, town. I got lucky and got a 5th layer by living in a condo association. (grrrr). My comments and probably some of the others were open enough to pertain to any government ... and I’m pretty sure the state govs are supposed to do the school thingy.
OK,so it s only .60 cents, I can handle that. Oh, that group over there needs help too? how much? oh, another .60 cents. Thats just $1.20, I can handle that. What? you say a group of artists want a special museum for anti religious items? Hey! I oppose that! Yea, I know some of the folks opposed item two but chipped in any way, so here is my contribution what the heck, its only $1.80. What? Money for neoretro art? its gonna cost a little more? ok, its only $2.95, what the heck. And on and on it goes until all of a sudden it can I borrow a few bucks? the govmnt took my pay check.
I have no problem supporting the arts, provided its artthat I would find agreeable, and then I’d just as soon pay them direct.
And supporting them directly would be the capitalist way. But would you really want everything to be pay-per-view? I like that there are some publicly funded arty things. I’m just not really sure what I want though. I appreciate the little war memorials every town has, the occassional GOH (Guy On a Horse) statuary of this famous somebody who did something. I think a few national museums are a good idea too. Maybe a national theatre? But that’s about it. It can and does get out of hand awfully fast. Heck, I don’t want my tax money going to support NPR. If we have a National Poet it ought to pay about $8/hr, no more. What I might see as a vital program you could see as utter waste. How to strike a balance? Especially considering that the governments already spend so damn much, and we have just about no control over it, and they go and pass laws that allow them to earmark funds - billions of dollars in total - and they can hide their sponsorships of them? WTF?
How about if we cut out all waste in government at all levels? Can we? How about if the people had the line item veto and voted on the budgets? Or on most of the parts of the budget? There could be things like military spending, interest payments and some slice of social service payments that would be sacrosanct. But if the folks voted to control how perhaps 50% of the money got spent ... would that work, or would it spiral out of control? Could there be a series of national referendums on what WTP actually want governments to do ... from the laundry list of what the governments are allowed to do?
$115000
so, $5 for every man woman and child in Staunton....
