You Can't Go Home Again

Blaine Young, Chair of our County Commissioners is pushing for elimination of all county funding for non-profits.  He says it’s to save the county from raising taxes, though estimates are that the total county funding for non profits amounts to .1 cent per dollar of the county budget.   So if you have a property tax of $5,000, then annually funding non-profits could cost you a whole $5.  I think he’s chasing a dream, his dream, of life in the county 100 years ago.  His real problem seems to be that he’s after the wrong opponents, and his dream becomes the nightmare of others.

The non-profits he would cut funding for include operations like Heartly House, the Mental Health Association, the Cold Weather Shelter, etc. – all those places that the people derailed from normal living by the stresses and dislocations of our current county way of life go to for help with coping and recovery.  “Have they no poor houses to go to?” snarled Ebenezer Scrooge, and Young’s solution is suspiciously similar.  He seems to think religious congregations and big hearted people around the county will pick up the slack.  But, as an example, for my own congregation to double its giving for such purposes, and that would not be enough, would require an increase in giving of about $50 per member, not the $5 provided through property taxes.  That’s because “many hands make light work”, as the load is shared by the whole county population.

And the problem is a county-wide problem, not just for the poor and for the big-hearted only, but for all the people and for the county government.  The county Young appears to dream of is the sleepy, mainly rural and lightly populated county of 100 years ago.  People knew each other, life didn’t change that fast, and neighbor helped neighbor.  At least that’s the way the dream goes.  But you really can’t go home to that dream again.  The modern county is a high-tech, commuter-oriented place where life changes fast, for better or worse, and the attendant stresses and strains can ruin lives.  Neighbors often don’t know even who lives next door.  Government, like it or not, plays a big role throughout.  State and local government offer tax subsidies and grants to business to stimulate growth, rezone, build new roads, etc., actively working to create the growth and change that alters the lives of their citizens.  They no longer are allowed to disclaim responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

The responsibility of government, and that includes the county, to act has been recognized for many years now, as has also been recognized the impossibility of governments to act flexibly and efficiently enough through direct action to get done all that is needed. The solution to the dilemma has been “third-party government”, the funding by government of private organizations to get done things that government is too unwieldy to accomplish.  Government can’t build advanced fighter planes; that’s why they subsidize defense contractors to do so.  And government can’t directly provide all necessary services to those displaced and traumatized by the changes government has encouraged; that’s why they why they fund non-profits to do so.  That’s what the non-profits are doing that Young seeks to defund. It’s time for Blaine Young to wake up from his dream, and get back to the work of managing effectively all of the county’s responsibilities, not just those of 100 years ago.