Suggestions for local government
There is one prevailing yet seemingly ignored reality in our political discourse on this island. We are poor and our present demographic indicators indicate that the degree of impoverishment will only worsen should present trends continue.
Our politicians at all three levels of government ignore this realty, preferring instead to clamor recklessly and without any sense of planning or prioritization for public money for every project and spending proposal. In the process, we have witnessed a series of failures and waste.
Our now desperate desire for revival has resulted in an indiscriminate call for every government dollar and support for every project, even when the goals of one are inherently contradictory to those of another. Our politicians will triumph any slogan available merely so long as it will get votes. The practice of politics has in fact been reduced to a game of tribalism where ‘I will say what will advance my team and keep doing so until a more convenient hobbyhorse to ride comes along.’
The only sector showing any growth is the public sector, a political class, if you will, of government workers, elected politicians and professionals who seemingly feed off one another in an ever-increasing incestuous orgy of public spending.
The end game of this class is not achievement of legitimate public objectives but rather career achievement and advancement. It is an interesting phenomenon where, as population declines, we see the public sector grow, its salaries and benefits increase and its demand for even further increases continue.
This has resulted in a situation where we are faced with false dichotomies. For example, if one questions the police budget he or he is accused of being against the police. If one says that there are too many vehicles available to the fires service, he has no care for the potential loss of a child’s life in a house fire.
The fact is that however nice it might be to support many projects we simply cannot afford much of it. No politician will dare say we cannot afford something or another. Such an utterance might sound the death knell for her at the next election. It might even derail his or her next chosen job on the political ladder.
Theirs is a vocation to appear busy at endless meetings and the maintenance of a frenetic pace, passing new laws, calling for more money, announcing that “I favor that and this” |but never saying where all of the money will come from because after all ‘your taxes are too high and I will reduce them as well.” Real problems are ignored because dealing with them requires hard and sometimes unpopular decisions. Decisions, it can be said, that will more often not please the mob than please it.
So then, what might be some things our local government, at least, could look at. Here are some suggestions:
First the tax issue. Our population growth rate is 30 times less than it was 40 years ago. More significantly it is aging. We will soon have a revenue problem. Accordingly, we must reduce and streamline the size of municipal government, including the money it spends and some of the areas where it spends it.
We must, as well, of course, consider changes to how we finance municipal government. There are many out there, including national HST distribution reform, a tax arrangement reducing property taxes and incorporating revenue sharing through existing (and not new) income tax collection. Municipal budgeting should introduce a system of zero-based budgeting with a so-called line item veto authority.
Next, we must make it easier for people to start and develop businesses. Unnecessary regulation is strangling businesses. Superfluous and suffocating by-laws and the like must be eliminated. In this respect, less government is better government. Government cannot create economic development. It can, however, help foster conditions where private enterprises can.
If we want to turn a corner and make this a more attractive area for people to move to, provide them with less government, less regulation and less taxes. It would be a positive start. David Delaney Albert Bridge