COUNTING ON YOU TO KNOW WHAT'S BEST

Notes of Concern…
…Jackson Blair

“Counting On You to Know What’s Best”

As we approach the end of the year, we give a lot of thoughts to gifts and good feelings. After the turn of the year, we give a lot of thought to “paying the piper” for the gifts that were a result of good feelings. It is a never-ending circle.

I want to take a moment to talk about living within one’s means. It applies to people, businesses and governments.

We hear a lot about this but see little of it. If you are fortunate to have an income, and if you plan on an annual basis for your expenses, and put a little away for emergencies, then you should be relatively stress free, at least with reference to finances.

But our society pushes us in so many ways to want more than we can legitimately afford. It encourages us to “lay things away” while we pay for them, or just take them now and pay for them later, or borrow to buy what you want today. There are even some commercials that suggest you can have it now and not pay a dime for 12 or 24 months.

There exists “good sense” or “common sense” but right along beside them exists “nonsense.”

If you want a Mercedes and can only afford a Chevy, common sense suggests you buy the Chevy until your prospects brighten and your career advances and you can one day buy the Mercedes.

Nonsense suggests you buy the Mercedes now and pay for it over ten years.

If you want a home with five bedrooms but can only afford one with three, common sense tells you to buy the three bedroom home.

Nonsense says grab the five bedroom because you will surely get raises every year from now until you die and one day you will look at the astronomical payments as easy to meet.

We need to apply common sense and good sense principles to government at all levels. If we do, we will be ever so much better prepared for the future.

The town manager in any town should be paid what good town managers in similarly sized towns get paid.

The mayor of a city should earn what mayors of other similar cities earn. Same for Governors. The same holds true for Fire Chiefs and Police Chiefs and teachers and so many other public servants.

What does it say about a town, city or state that so overpays public servants that it actually places everyday services at risk?

What does it say about a town that grants multiyear contracts with unreasonable terms and locks itself into a windstorm of ever growing financial obligations when it doesn’t even know if it can keep a school open, continue to pay teachers to guide children, or provide for the current needs of those who protect our property from fire or our homes from burglars.

I know what it says. And if you take a moment, so do you.

At this time of year I am reminded of a familiar carol:




Bobby wants a pair of skates,
Suzy wants a sled
Nellie wants a picture book,
yellow, blue, and red
Now I think I'll leave to you
what to give the rest
Choose for me, dear Santa Claus;
you will know whats best.

-Jolly Old St. Nicholas

And so as we end one year and begin the next, I admonish my readers not to wait for Jolly Old St. Nicholas.

He is not coming.

The tough decisions are ours.

Fortunately, we “will know what’s best.”

And that means we are obligated to select leaders who will deliver to us “what’s best.”

And those leaders are obligated to do so.

Every one of them should be held accountable when they make decisions about “what’s best” for us.