EDITORIAL: Government's impossible job

July 11, 2008 04:00 am

— When the price of gasoline started escalating, past $2 a gallon, on to $3 and, at last look, beyond $4, people everywhere lamented that it was going to cost them more to drive than perhaps the trip was worth. That introspection was followed by resentment that oil companies were so mercenary and bemusement that the government was impotent to do anything to brake the trend.
What few realized as the predicament became worse was that it wasn't just in driving that the damage was going to be manifest. The products we all buy were going to have to cost more because they were delivered to stores by some kind of fuel. Petroleum saturates just about every aspect of our lives.
Suddenly, employees saw a significant percentage of their net income reduced because just getting to work was costing so much more.
Governments that have been so focused on reducing taxes, or at least keeping them from soaring beyond residents' ability to pay, are themselves victims of the fuel-price crisis. It now costs lots more to pave and plow roads and streets, pick up garbage and get to consituents' emergencies.
It was an interesting juxtaposition of stories in last Thursday's Press-Republican Page A5: Clinton Community College was asking its County Legislature for a 3.9-percent increase in funding, at the same time the Essex County Board of Supervisors was ordering its department heads to curtail all spending on new purchases for the rest of the year.
Both these stories presented compelling evidence that the public bodies had made prudent decisions, even though they were in direct contrast to one another.
If the Community College is to perform its function of offering a comprehensive education to its student body, it must have the resources to provide the requisite services. This is not an expense to taxpayers but an investment. If Clinton County's young people are going to be able to fulfill job requirements to remain in their native region, they are going to have to be able to offer potential employers the sophisticated skills the employers could count on elsewhere.
If Essex County is to keep its tax bills affordable to its constituents, it must impose a spending moratorium to make sure costs don't exceed resources.
But the two are at odds with one another. And both are intensified by the high cost of fuel. Colleges must heat buildings and pay for electricity for computers. A retiree in Mineville can't pay taxes that reflect the quick rise in fuel prices that the county has to pay.
The sad fact is that running a government today is just as hard as running a household or a company -- maybe harder. To provide the services people need and want means taking more money out of those people's pockets to do it. It has never been harder to be a representative or administrator on any level of government than it is right now.