Why we aren’t unhappy about budget problems
Posted on | August 9, 2009 | Eric Peterson |
A couple of days ago, an eight-year-old girl’s lemonade stand in Tulare was shut down by a city code enforcement officer because she didn’t have a city business license to hawk her fresh-squeezed drink at a busy intersection.
Daniela Earnest was trying to raise money for a family trip to Disneyland.
In fairness to the code officer — who technically works for the city fire department — he was responding to a complaint, and it all turned out okay because a local radio station swapped 30 cups of the beverage for tickets to the theme park.
But it does point out why the state’s budget crisis, and its resulting impact on local governments, doesn’t really bother us all that much.
First, maybe cities and counties have to take a long hard look at how their personnel are spending their time, considering that taxpayers are paying for it. We’re all for libraries; after all, the local library was dedicated with a poem written by our late father, in what he considered to be one of the proudest moments of his life. We’re not so much for people with authority who can’t find some other way to resolve a citizen complaint (!?!?) except to bully an eight-year-old girl selling lemonade on a hot summer day in the middle of the central valley.
Second, we think that cities and counties (and the state) should consider this current crisis as an opportunity for self-examination. Do we really need all those programs? Do we really need all those people wandering around nice fancy offices? Do they really add that much value to our lives?
PJ O’Rourke wrote, “The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.” That is a malady not restricted to that little piece of ground carved out of Maryland; there is a pretty solid example of it about an hour to the east-northeast of here, and one that isn’t too bad just a few minutes down Highway 49.
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