A great article, originally published in the Concord Monitor on April 8, 2015, by local author
Mel Graykin. You can learn more about her work at https://justinegraykin.wordpress.com/about-the-writer/
I’ve been following the budget battles in Concord (and to
a lesser extent in the individual towns) with incredulous fascination. Like most
everyone else, I’ve just endured the painful ordeal of tax time. Nobody enjoys
paying taxes, but the intelligent person accepts that this is the cost of having
necessary services. Fixing potholes is not done magically by leprechauns in the
middle of the night.
By now I am becoming wearily accustomed to being embarrassed
by our representatives in government, whose antics have had the dubious
distinction of getting mention on the Daily Show and memes shared virally on the
internet. I do not have enough palm with which to cover my face over the remarks
made by Rep. Warren Groen about the fourth-graders’ red-tailed hawk bill. But he
did achieve international notoriety for it (BBC news picked up the story).
Perhaps, like P.T. Barnum, he figures any publicity is good
publicity.
What truly baffles me is not that people eminently unsuited for public office make eminently unsuitable remarks. No, what truly baffles me is that these incompetents got elected, and then get re-elected on a regular basis. Who is voting for these people and why?
The answer may be as simple as understanding the typical voter. Most of the time, people vote along party lines. If a bloviating monkey is the only one running, they are unlikely to switch parties; they will vote for the monkey because he’s Our Guy and Not One of Them. Or, if they have a choice, often they will fill in the oval next to the one they’ve heard of. Rep. Groen has the advantage here. The voter may have totally forgotten the incident but will remember the name.
Or the voter may be fixated on a particular issue. Could be abortion, or GMOs or gun control. The actual qualifications of the candidate are irrelevant so long as he or she is on what the voter feels is the correct side of the issue. The unscrupulous candidate merely scrutinizes the polls and parrots back accordingly. And, like the parrot, recites his favorite line as often as possible to remind the voters how dedicated he is to this single issue. Like comparing red-tailed hawks to Planned Parenthood.
And now we have this circus of questionable talent working on our budget. No doubt there are a good number of genuinely concerned and competent people trying earnestly to do the intelligent thing, and one’s heart goes out to them. It must be an agonizing ordeal trying to talk sense in a room full of one-issue wonders and grandstanding magpies. The anti-tax drum has always been a popular one to beat. Most people are convinced their taxes are too high. So candidates fall all over each other vying for the prize as biggest tax cutter. Heaven help the poor deluded soul who tries to argue, quite reasonably, that taxes are necessary in order to properly run the state (and the country), and the cuts are hurting people and crippling services. Such rational discourse is political suicide.
Which leaves us with the spectacle of robbing Peter to pay Paul, pulling money from renewable energy and the university system in order to fund the Department of Transportation. I suppose social services are already too emaciated to spare sufficient funds to make up the shortfall. But now the tax-cutters can brag about the money they saved taxpayers.
The government is always accused of wasting the taxpayer’s money. Chiefly, the waste is identified in expenditures the particular taxpayer doesn’t happen to support. If you don’t have kids in school and don’t give a damn about education, you probably were delighted to see money pulled from the university system to maintain the roads. But the deeper issue is that the cuts should not have been made at all. We are bankrupting students, throwing the homeless and those suffering from mental illness out on the streets, and pushing responsibility back to the towns to deal with expensive and difficult problems. There is shrewd frugality and then there is shortsighted stupidity. The current budget battle is an exercise in the latter.
I don’t like paying taxes, but I recognize I must pay my fair share. And I bitterly resent those who use their power and influence to avoid paying theirs. That is where the problem lies – not in excessive taxes but in insufficient revenue. Speak the unspeakable. We need new taxes, and they need to target those who can most afford to pay them. It seems so obvious. So sensible. A moral imperative, even, considering who is paying the tragic human cost for the budget shortfall.
Not likely to happen in New Hampshire. Not these monkeys, not this circus.
What truly baffles me is not that people eminently unsuited for public office make eminently unsuitable remarks. No, what truly baffles me is that these incompetents got elected, and then get re-elected on a regular basis. Who is voting for these people and why?
The answer may be as simple as understanding the typical voter. Most of the time, people vote along party lines. If a bloviating monkey is the only one running, they are unlikely to switch parties; they will vote for the monkey because he’s Our Guy and Not One of Them. Or, if they have a choice, often they will fill in the oval next to the one they’ve heard of. Rep. Groen has the advantage here. The voter may have totally forgotten the incident but will remember the name.
Or the voter may be fixated on a particular issue. Could be abortion, or GMOs or gun control. The actual qualifications of the candidate are irrelevant so long as he or she is on what the voter feels is the correct side of the issue. The unscrupulous candidate merely scrutinizes the polls and parrots back accordingly. And, like the parrot, recites his favorite line as often as possible to remind the voters how dedicated he is to this single issue. Like comparing red-tailed hawks to Planned Parenthood.
And now we have this circus of questionable talent working on our budget. No doubt there are a good number of genuinely concerned and competent people trying earnestly to do the intelligent thing, and one’s heart goes out to them. It must be an agonizing ordeal trying to talk sense in a room full of one-issue wonders and grandstanding magpies. The anti-tax drum has always been a popular one to beat. Most people are convinced their taxes are too high. So candidates fall all over each other vying for the prize as biggest tax cutter. Heaven help the poor deluded soul who tries to argue, quite reasonably, that taxes are necessary in order to properly run the state (and the country), and the cuts are hurting people and crippling services. Such rational discourse is political suicide.
Which leaves us with the spectacle of robbing Peter to pay Paul, pulling money from renewable energy and the university system in order to fund the Department of Transportation. I suppose social services are already too emaciated to spare sufficient funds to make up the shortfall. But now the tax-cutters can brag about the money they saved taxpayers.
The government is always accused of wasting the taxpayer’s money. Chiefly, the waste is identified in expenditures the particular taxpayer doesn’t happen to support. If you don’t have kids in school and don’t give a damn about education, you probably were delighted to see money pulled from the university system to maintain the roads. But the deeper issue is that the cuts should not have been made at all. We are bankrupting students, throwing the homeless and those suffering from mental illness out on the streets, and pushing responsibility back to the towns to deal with expensive and difficult problems. There is shrewd frugality and then there is shortsighted stupidity. The current budget battle is an exercise in the latter.
I don’t like paying taxes, but I recognize I must pay my fair share. And I bitterly resent those who use their power and influence to avoid paying theirs. That is where the problem lies – not in excessive taxes but in insufficient revenue. Speak the unspeakable. We need new taxes, and they need to target those who can most afford to pay them. It seems so obvious. So sensible. A moral imperative, even, considering who is paying the tragic human cost for the budget shortfall.
Not likely to happen in New Hampshire. Not these monkeys, not this circus.
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