This story of Wahkiakum County by Paul Jacobs in his latest column at Townhall.com in a way sounds like the future of our county, except you can substitute the nursing home and a myriad of social service agencies in place of the clinic discussed in the piece. It further adds to the mix pretty much all the elements of bad government at various levels. Again, it sounds vaguely familiar, unfortunately, as what Mr. Jacobs observes in his excellent article could be almost Anywhere, USA.
Here’s but a taste of what Paul writes:
Ever since then, revenues have fallen. And continue to fall. Add to all this falling lumber prices and an overestimate for this year’s revenue and the county was looking to borrow money to pay its bills, another $500,000 before year’s end.
Now the commissioners are rushing around laying people off, closing programs, etc. etc. They haven’t had the nerve to let the clinic go, though.
Such is politics in America, today. We risk the insolvency of our governments, propping up failed businesses. Because politicians pretend they can repeal the laws of markets, can ignore the failure of demand to support supply at favored supplier’s preferred prices, they simply trudge on throwing your tax dollars at the problem.
Until they can’t any longer, of course.
Do yourself a favor and read the entire piece. You’ll be glad you did… well, maybe not. He doesn’t paint a pretty picture and, well, you just know the politicians in charge of most things today aren’t going to really make the hard choices needed to fix what needs fixing. The folks Jabobs writes of in his piece knew a day of reckoning was a long time coming… and still, they did nothing, until it was basically too late. Is this how Rome falls (again)?
Barbarians… or jihadists. Is there a difference?