Government: The continuous exercise of authority over and the performance of functions for a political unit; so Merriam-Webster on-line defines those who rule us. While a simple sentence may define government, it can take volumes to define the scope and purpose of government. I very much wish our elected officials would define for us what they consider the purpose of their offices. From the City Council of Long Beach, to Mayor, to member of the Assembly or State Senate, to Governor, to member of the House of Representatives or Senate, to the President of the
How you define your role(s) in life define how you behave and what responsibilities, priorities and decisions you make. If I define my role as a father to provide for my family and ensure they have adequate shelter, clothing, nutrition and education for the children, I structure my decisions within those purposes. When we are faced with difficult fiscal times and the choice is go out for dinner every night or buy shoes, we buy shoes. When my daughter comes home from school and says classmates are going to a late movie that night and our choice is making our daughter happy or because it is a school night having her stay home, do her homework and reading and go to bed by 8:30 so she is rested for school in the morning, we make our daughter unhappy. Our choices reflect our values and what we consider our primary roles and purpose as parents to be.
How one defines the purpose of one’s office defines how one will act when in office; what choices and decisions politicians make are usually framed within what they feel the purpose of their office is. On Sunday, the Press-Telegram ran an article on the budget deficit facing the City of
Thus far, it appears that one of the primary purposes of the city government is to protect its citizens and businesses in the view of several members of council, as they have stated they will not cut the number of sworn police officers as part of their budget balancing process. But what will they cut? One danger of a budgeting process when spending exceeds revenue is to cut evenly across the board—I feel this “equal budgeting” process is what causes future deficits and expansion of government. “Equal budgeting” is imposing the same cuts on all departments—whether the department is a core service or not, all departments are treated equally under this budget process.
When we are flush and our home economics are very positive, we enjoy splurging a couple of times a year with a trip to Lasher’s for a complete fine dining experience, including pre-dinner cocktails, appetizers, dessert and some nice wine. When the market turns cold and we are on a tighter budget, we do not lose the trip to Lasher’s but decide to cut out cocktails and dessert, while at the same time trimming 15% off the clothing budget and the home maintenance budget; we do not use an equal budgeting process. When things get tight, we cut the entire Lasher’s program out of our budget until such time as we can prudently afford to have that luxury in our lives without impinging on the necessities—the priorities and primary purposes of our finances: shelter, clothing, nutrition and education for the kids. All spending does not get treated the same in our home, nor should it in our government.
When the city council is faced with tough times, some of them seem to want to keep the Lasher’s program in the budget and trim a bit off the order, and every other expenditure in the city so everything is “equal.” Sorry, but all budget items are not equal. Police officers are more important than Park Rangers. Librarians and recreation directors are more important that Human Dignity or Sustainability Coordinators. The Health Department is more important than the Arts Council. Funds for maintaining our infrastructure are more important than funding consultants. The city council needs to quit the soft-shoe budgeting and trying to treat all departments equally and cut programs that are the “Lasher’s” items—cut the programs that are great to have when we can afford them, but now that we cannot do not cause basic services like safety, health, infrastructure and education to suffer. By looking to trim all departments equally what the city council ends up doing is keeping the steak dinner while cutting essential programs and services.
All departments are not equal, all services are not necessities. If a department or program does not provide either safety for the community, health care for the community, maintaining our roads and sidewalks, education for the community or is either revenue neutral or revenue positive the council needs to look at cutting the department or program. Except for core services, every department and program needs to be on the chopping block and some will have to go: concerts in the parks, arts councils, parades, and other non-essential programs all are great to have but do not speak to the core purpose of our city government and unless they can find their own funding need to be suspended until the city once again has budget surpluses. This is not a very popular position, but getting elected is a popularity contest, governing is not and right now we need governance for our city not a most popular contest.
Our state government is not much better. Last week the Long Beach Post wrote about two new bills introduced by State Senator Jenny Oropeza; one would make it illegal to smoke on state beaches and in state parks, the other would require left over food from catered events be distributed to the homeless. I applaud the comments made on the post by readers Paul Azpeitia and “Charlie”, both denounced the bills. Oropeza sees the obligation of her office to “safeguard residents and be a good steward for the planet.” So her job is to protect people from themselves and to save the planet by feeding the homeless with culinary discards; not to ensure adequate funding for hospitals, schools, police and fire departments.
Right now the obligation of Oropeza and everyone else in
Governor Schwarzenegger needs to veto every bill that is presented to him that does not involve funding public safety personnel, health care and Medi-Cal, or public education until the State Legislature and Senate present a balanced budget and structural reform bills to him. Every no smoking bill, catering food bill, mobile phone bills, protecting the three legged-horned owl frog bill, every one is vetoed until the primary obligation of the state government is met: fund and provide for public safety, health care, maintain our infrastructure and education. Schwarzenegger needs to be the Chief Executive Officer for the State of
During the huge run up in home values, many Americans used their equity to buy boats, go on extravagant vacations, buy luxury items for their homes; now many are faced with extreme financial difficulties as home values have shrunk and they can no longer use their equity to pay their bills. Some are losing their homes, others are shedding the items they purchased when times were good. None of the decisions are easy, but they have to be made. Our governments are no different, when times were good they “bought” new programs, spent more money and depended on rising tax revenues to keep paying the bills. Now revenues are dropping and more taxes will result in less revenue as businesses are forced to close or out of state. The only solution is to make cuts in the luxury items in the budget, no more dinners at Lasher’s or big screen televisions; it is time for our elected officials to govern and not campaign for their next election; time to work for the people and not their campaign contributors.
Great leadership is easier to recognize during difficult times when difficult decisions are to be made, in the coming months based on the choices made to balance budgets, by seeing how those choices are made, by observing who is willing to do what is necessary versus what is politically correct or expedient, we will see who are the great leaders in our community and state.
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