One of the best quotes, describing the American Conservative movement is from Grover Norquist who once told the Wall Street Journal his goal was to get government “down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.”
Norquist is head of Americans for Tax Reform, and one of the “Gang of Five” which orchestrated the return to power of the GOP in both houses of Congress in the 1990s.
While I don’t share his animosity toward the nation’s public servants and representatives, I do appreciate his sentiment. Government is best when you notice it the least — both when services are provided on time and when you look at your tax bill.
The rub is that the services our community needs are provided through property and sales taxes. I don’t like shelling the extra few hundred bucks on top of my monthly mortgage payments, but I like having my garbage taken away and my streets plowed.
Many feel the codes and ordinances local governments expect us to live by are too intrusive. Why do we need to jump through so many hoops just to put an addition on our garage or put a sign outside our business? Why do we have to pay to have our lawn debris hauled away when a good old-fashioned bonfire would do the trick just as well?
This editorial is leading up to mention of controversy in the Town of Livonia which has spawned so many letters to the editor this week. The town is hoping to abdicate its responsibility in enforcing placement of private docks on Conesus Lake by repealing parts of the town’s Docks and Moorings Law.
Why would a government give up on managing marine property in one of its most affluent and congested areas?
It’s actually quite easy to understand. The town has had to spend tens of thousands of dollars prosecuting an offending landowner who receives a slap on the wrist from the court. A law that isn’t properly specific and can’t be properly enforced is not much of a law at all.
Across the hill from Conesus is Hemlock Lake, which has been kept in pristine shape through decades of ownership by the City of Rochester. Now that the city doesn’t need Hemlock as a water source, ownership of lands around the lake will be transfered to the state.
Perhaps the state should turn the lands over to private developers to generate some much-needed cash? Once this is done, should the state take the same hands-off approach the Town of Livonia seems to be cultivating around Conesus Lake?
Of course not. Hemlock, as most would agree, is a treasure worth preserving in its present state — one of the few natural bodies of water left in America which hasn’t yet gotten crowded by watercraft, cottage docks and the weeds that inevitably follow.
Government, when it is accountable to the people rather than the other way around, serves a crucial purpose we cannot live without. Without robust local government, we would have to settle our differences by fist or by coin. Life would be much different if any service we have come to depend upon were taken away.
However, government only works when the public funding is there for it to use — in the form of local taxes or state and federal taxes redistributed in the form of grants.
The only way out of this spiraling duality of rising taxes and declining services is the development of new business and industry — and even then, we need strong government in place to represent the public’s best interest as these new neighbors find a place in our communities.
