Writing these monthly columns gives me an opportunity to address issues that affect our community. I think it’s important for residents to understand how what is happening in Washington right now is affecting our own budget process. I believe it will be important for us to be vigilant about the direction our government is taking and how it will affect the States and ultimately the cities. Frankly speaking, it’s not good.
As we pick up the paper each day, there is something pertaining to such words and phrases as Growing Government Control, Cap and Trade, Czars, Stimulus Package, Corporate Bailouts, Transparency and Accountability. I am concerned about these terminologies and what is unraveling in Washington today. Here we are in the middle of our local budget process trying to plan for our future and the fiscal crisis in Sacramento is driving a future of unknowns. The feds are broke, the state is broke and yet we stand alone and solvent at least for now. The trickle down affect of these insolvencies can only have a disastrous affect on the budgets of every city. It makes planning very difficult.
As Lawmakers on the Federal level are embarking on a dangerous path of uncharted waters, lawmakers in Sacramento are entrenched in their polarizing tactics and fiscal irresponsibility. City funding sources are being taken to fill the gaps to save the state. When it’s all said and done, who will save the cities? I can only imagine a newspaper’s headline in the future to look like this: JANUARY 1, 2020 The California Legislature looks to borrow money from the state of Nevada because cities in California are broke… As ridiculous as that sounds, the way things are going, who can say what can or can’t happen? We seem to be allowing a new wave of governing to rise up and create new challenges for us without our permission. Like a giant earthquake, we are allowing lawmakers to shift the very foundation on which this nation was created, to a point of destruction of government as we know it.
With the series of political actions that have taken place recently, especially with the bank bailouts, I wondered how some of our great leaders would have responded to those decisions. I did some research and found that they had foreseen what we are experiencing. From Thomas Jefferson: “The system of banking is a blot left in all our constitutions, which if not covered, will end in their destruction. I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity is but swindling futurity on a large scale. The end of Democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when the government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations”. Abraham Lincoln said: “ The money powers prey on the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity…they denounce as public enemies, all who question their methods or throw light upon their crimes … I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one in my rear is my greatest foe.”
We are becoming a nation of sheep, so wounded by the nation’s economic crisis, plus our own state budget crisis, that we seem to accept being nickel and dimed to death with fees and taxes to fill the gap and try to continue our services. We are being hit so fast and from so many directions that we need to slow down and stop making everything an emergency. We need to get to the root cause of our problems. Increased bailouts and continued entitlements is not the American way. We entrusted our elected officials to do right by us but they seem to hear the voice of their parties and not ours. I call upon people to let your voice be heard. Make sure that your lawmakers are representing the needs of their constituency in spite of objections by their party.
How much more of our local funding are we going to allow the State to take from us? Look around you; many more cities are looking to cut services because they are running out of money. The State lawmakers are really forcing cities to put everything on hold to help straighten out the mess they (the State) have made. The League of California Cities Initiative will stop this money grabbing by the state and keep local funds local. The shuffling that is being done and the fear factors are a perfect recipe for sending us out of control and allowing lawmakers to have a field day at our expense. The people in California are looking for true leadership, not leadership for the party but leadership for the people. I am sick and tired of the continued empty rhetoric of the political parties. With the irresponsible actions going on right now I am concerned that our constitution hangs by a thread. Our cities need to stay strong and solvent because that’s what built America.
I end this column with a quote from James Madison in 1788, speaking to the Virginia Convention: “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations”.
If this land is your land and if this land is my land then WE THE PEOPLE had better take responsibility and control before it’s gone. Email me at lkoelling@fostercity.org with your comments.
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