After serving four years in the Air Force, I began my pursuit of higher education at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. New Hampshire’s state motto is “Live Free or Die”. Its conservative roots were embodied by the son of William Loeb, who was Secretary to the President, Teddy Roosevelt. William Loeb III , became a powerful figure in the Republican party as the publisher and editor of the only statewide newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader. As New Hampshire’s reigning super-conservative, he dominated politics and made or broke the lives of many an aspiring politician. I remember him railing against Cassius Clay as a draft dodger, all but ending Senator Ed Muskie’s presidential campaign when Muskie broke down and wept defending his wife in front of the newspaper’s offices, and ordering a Playboy issue featuring Jayne Mansfield to be pulled from every store in the State (within two hours none could be found thus providing a brisk business for college entrepreneurs to buy the magazine in bundles in Boston and resell at considerable profit).
For more than forty years now, most presidential campaigns begin with debates held at St. A’s so, as you might expect, a considerable amount of excitement is generated among the collegiate political “junkies” at this time of year. I must confess that I never caught the bug. The gym and the outdoors held greater attraction for me. I did watch some of the debates this year, although it was mostly to see how much the campus had changed. While I didn’t recognize anything about the place, I did find it particularly interesting after the Republican debate when the question was asked about homeland security sending more money to cities so that they could hire more cops. The response was that monies should be sent to the cities and that the cities should make the decisions about funding and allocating resources because it is a core belief of the Republican Party that the government closest to the people knows best and should be making those decisions. Apparently Rubio and his fellow Florida Republicans stepped out of class during that orientation and have adopted a Florida-only rule that Big Brother Knows Best. There is no further need to rant about the first round of the tax cuts. It’s done. As Rubio said: “Time for talking is over. It’s time to do.” And while that strategy is scarily similar to our approach towards Iraq, the Constitutional amendments will be sent to the voters without knowing ahead of time all the ramifications of the pending fiscal impacts and without allowing the Special Tax Commission time to conduct its study.
That being said, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Local governments really do need to take advantage of this situation to move forward on a number of progressive initiatives that could produce better service and provide cost containment if not cost savings for the people we serve. We really have to move beyond municipal boundaries as service areas. I am so sick and tired of coping with failed attempts at cities working together because of petty politics and egos. There is no need for the tremendous duplication of municipal functions that could readily be handled by one entity. We should be exploring regional or mini-region police, fire, code, permitting and purchasing, pension / health benefits, and risk management to name but a few areas. If we let this opportunity slip away, shame on us.
Slainte!
John Kelly