Jobs or windows?
Written by Ben Konop | | news@toledofreepress.comFiscal priorities. We all set them. Whether it’s a family deciding to spend money on their daughter’s college education instead of buying a new car or a small businessman opting to invest his profits into growing his business instead of taking a trip to Florida, setting spending priorities is a reality of life for all of us. It’s no different for county government. With shrinking revenues and ever-greater service needs, county government has to set priorities in these challenging economic times.
That’s why I was so vocal in opposing a taxpayer-funded $450,000 purchase of new windows for a county building. Instead, I proposed to use about half of that money to fund two job-creation programs that would have created about 40 jobs at area nonprofits and high-tech startups. A small portion of the money, under my plan, would have gone to help uninsured and underinsured citizens in Lucas County receive, on average, a 20 percent discount on prescription drug costs through joining a purchasing plan sponsored by the National Association of Counties. And the rest of the window money, $200,000, would have gone into the county’s rainy day fund, a conservative investment in case our fiscal situation gets worse. It’s just like a family tucking some money into the piggy bank in case of unforeseen challenges. Nobody likes to do it, but it’s the prudent thing to do.
Unfortunately, on Oct. 21, my commissioner colleagues outvoted me 2 to 1 in favor of the windows. So you, the taxpayer, are now the lucky recipient of $450,000 windows for an aging, nondescript county building. Sadly, dozens of Lucas County residents will miss out on getting back on their feet and into the work force due to this vote. And local nonprofits, many of which are affiliated with United Way, will be hurt because they are short-staffed and could have used the help the jobs would have created to offer services to the neediest among us. Small business in areas like alternative energy will be hurt because we didn’t devote the resources to giving them the manpower to grow and create 21st century jobs for our local economy. And the tens of thousands of Lucas County residents who are uninsured or underinsured lose out as well, because we didn’t invest in a program that could have saved them each hundreds of dollars on out-of-control prescription drug costs.
Ten years ago, I probably would have voted with my colleagues and supported the $450,000 windows. Back then, our economy was creating jobs at a decent pace; we had a national budget surplus instead of a huge deficit, and we weren’t fighting two wars that cost us $10 billion a month. In short, we could address less pressing needs in the community like windows on a county building, because less people in our community were hurting.
In 2008, we face a starkly different reality. Our unemployment rate is rising and is likely to get worse. Foreclosures are decimating families and neighborhoods. And health care costs continue to skyrocket out of control while incomes shrink. That’s why I could not support the windows this time around.
Congress and the Bush administration bailed out their cronies on Wall Street to the taxpayer-paid tune of $700 billion. In my opinion, this was unwise and unfair to places like Toledo, where job-killing trade deals and globalization have undermined our manufacturing base. While we don’t have the power or resources to totally overcome the unfair hand we’ve been dealt, we do have some control over our destiny. And that’s what my jobs plan was really about.
The fat cats in Washington have ignored us for too long, and our local economy is paying the price. Sometimes it seems like people making decisions in D.C. have no real understanding of what we are going through here in Lucas County. By investing what we could in the people of our community, instead of buying windows, I was hoping to help bail out Main Street for once.
Ben Konop is a Lucas County commisisoner. E-mail him at bkonop@co.lucas.oh.us.
Perhaps Mr. Konop, additional education in economics, sub-heading fiscal responsibilities, should be in your future.
First, government does not create jobs, businesses do. Attempting to create jobs that can only survive with government funding is nothing short of illusion. The market creates the jobs it requires as and when it expands. Government interference will only inhibit that process. The concept of creating jobs for non-profit organizations moreover is insulting, both to the non-profits who budget their time and money so well and to the taxpayers who are already overburdened and paying for it.
Second, the windows that you so blithely set aside would not only reduce the operating costs of the building through reduced energy usage, but reduce the carbon footprint of the county, something that I am sure that you are likewise concerned with. Replacing those windows simply contributes to the green and efficient community that we are trying to create.
Third, taking an issue of this level and blaming on the Bush Administration is simply an attempt at partisan politics in the days leading up to an election, and beneath notice.
If you want to help those of us on “Main Street”; look for ways to reduce the cost of county government, look for ways to reduce our tax burden, and stop trying to find new ways and new “feel good” projects to spend our hard-earned dollars on.
This comment was posted on October 24th, 2008 at 7:42 pm