There's a raid on; should we join up?

The Augusta Chronicle editorial of January 16 is very thoughtful. The burgeoning bailout process places those political leaders with principles in a very difficult position. Do you get in line to get your "fair share" or do you make a genuine attempt to put your city, county or state on a sound financial footing. Governor Sanford has taken a principled stand and is getting hammered for it.Ironically from the very legislators who ignored the Governor's attempts to rein in spending. Fortunately the City of Aiken has managed it's finances very well and we have no serious problem but we must guard our reserves.To read the entire editorial and comments go here.

"There's a raid on; should we join up?


First the troubled companies, then the states, now every hamlet in America is invited to run into the vault

Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff

Friday, January 16, 2009

The recent sentiment from one Augusta commissioner is probably being echoed thousands of times across the country: Are we going to be getting our fair share from the upcoming Obama stimulus plan?

And this was from a discussion about bus service.

You know, Mayor Deke Copenhaver is probably right when he figures the "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects Augusta is proposing for federal stimulus funding are worthy investments -- and that if the money doesn't come here, it will just go somewhere else.

"Despite including $131 million to this point in the upcoming (special purpose local option sales tax), which will be primarily focused on infrastructure, we still have over $400 million in identified infrastructure needs. Ultimately, to recruit new businesses and to take care of the day-to-day needs of our citizens, these infrastructure issues need to be addressed."

Still, what we are seeing right now is nothing short of a raid on the U.S. Treasury.It's only somewhat neater than, say, the looting of a store during a disaster.But if the raid -- first by companies, then by states, now by cities -- is legal, you still have to wonder how constitutional it is.Not at all, in our view.

It harks back to the warning often attributed (rightly or wrongly) to Alexander Tytler:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy ..."

Copenhaver acknowledges he has such concerns."I very much understand your point about the raid on the Treasury. I also feel that we are passing the buck along to future generations, which is of great concern to me."YET, HE POINTS out, "If the funds are available in a competitive grant format, do we simply not apply in order to make a point, while shovel ready projects that would be eligible sit on the drawing board? From a real-world perspective, would we then not be put at a competitive disadvantage with cities of our size who had taken advantage of the infrastructure funding and addressed their infrastructure needs?" Sadly, yes.

States and cities seeking money from Washington "would be acting absolutely correctly, in terms of their own economic interest," says syndicated columnist Walter Williams. "And the reason why is that if I don't bring it back to Virginia, it doesn't mean that Virginians will pay a lower federal income tax; all that it means is that Tennessee will get it instead.

Once legalized theft begins, it pays for everybody to participate."There is a mind set that is, before your very eyes, becoming set in concrete: that the federal government exists to solve our problems, to bail us out at every level of public or even private life. That the government can be all things to all people. That no one alive today need feel any pain, make any sacrifice, as long as the federal government can borrow money from other countries to keep us comfortable until our children and grandchildren can somehow pay it back.

It really wasn't that long ago that another charismatic young president announced to the world that Americans would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship ..." He implored us to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."JFK's spirit is dead. America killed it.

IN ITS PLACE is a people with a perpetual hand out, a nation where we ask not what we can do for our country, but what our country can do for us. Where we worry not about where the money's coming from, but whether we're getting our share.Who can save us from this spiral into socialism and government dependence?And isn't it the very soul of America that's at stake?

The way we see it, there's only one entity that can save us. And that's us.Long term, we need to put a lock on the Treasury vault and throw away the key so none of us -- not Georgians, not Virginians, and certainly not members of Congress -- can get inside.That lock is called a constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of federal money for state and local projects or for anything that doesn't have to do with the basic functions of the federal government.

Maybe we need a double lock -- the second one being an amendment, or part of the above amendment, that requires Congress to balance the budget and to limit budgetary increases to something less than the growth in the gross domestic product.

Those are long-term solutions that will be insanely difficult, though surely worth it.
All we have to go on until then will be principle and discipline. And there's precious little of either these days in Washington, or at any level of government.For now, it appears there's no stopping this raid on the Treasury.Except, perhaps, one person, one city, one state at a time."


From the Friday, January 16, 2009 edition of the Augusta Chronicle