Friday, December 4, 2009

Value For Our Dollars

The three or four of you who read this blog know that I am a bit of a critic of government spending. For many years, the GOP has been hanging its hat on being the party which will cut taxes. It is the party of smaller government, less entitlements, etc.

Still, as I have written a few times before, what we need most is smart government, not small government. We need to cut taxes but we also need to remember that taxes are the price for the things we get from government. And, by the way, there are some very good things that some of our governments give us. What ought to be every politician's goal is to get government to spend money only on the things it should legitimately do and to tax and spend only those amounts which are reasonable and proper to provide those vital and/or desirable services.

One of the products/services provided by government which is of vital importance is education. Unfortunately, school spending is completely out of control. Education is vital, but the results we get do not appear to match the money we spend. My kids are students in the Gates-Chili School District. I am a fairly satisfied taxpayer and customer of the District. Yet I know that the price I pay for what my kids are getting is higher than it should be.

I attended my daughter's band concert on Wednesday. It was wonderful, as usual. The music programs at Gates-Chili are high-end, and the music directors and instructors there are first-rate, dedicated educators. I am not so convinced about all aspects of the operation, however. Every organization can stand some retrenchment. But, to hear teacher's union representatives speak, you would think that they would almost prefer exile to Siberia than to endure their daily unappreciated and allegedly, underpaid toil. Still, good teachers are worth a lot. The trick is to encourage the good ones and only get rid of the under performers.

All of us in government should strive to give value to the taxpayers for their dollars. The G-C music department should be an inspiration. I am confident that the tax dollars that go to music education at G-C are well spent. I also know that when cuts come, it will be programs like music that are often first to go, even though they are high on the value added scale.

We all as taxpayers should demand responsible spending, but we should also be willing to pay the fair price for the services we want. We need to avoid painting with too broad a brush. Its not correct to say vote against every incumbent and to vote against any spending. We need to take the time to find the good guys and reward them and to identify the bad guys and weed them out. We can't just throw up our hands and say a pox on them all.

If we want responsible spending, stable taxes and quality government services, we have to take action to get them.

9 comments:

King Dinglefritz said...

You have 3 or 4 readers? That is 2 or 3 more than I have. By the way you are completely right. Bad apples(poor teachers) should be lopped off the tree thus allowing the good ones to prosper and allowing new ones to grow but there is that bugaboo by the name of tenure. Can I get tenure at my job? No. There is no such thing as tenure to protect my fanny. If I suck at what I do I am sure that MY boss would let me know and show me the door(slamming it firmly on my behind as I left) but not teachers. The bad ones, once they get that precious tenure, stay on with NO incentive to improve. Then they get to retire, early in a lot of cases, and get to use that beautiful pension plan of theirs. Then most end up moving to some nice warm weather state to live out the balance of their taxpayer paid for retirement. Its a bloody racket that needs to be adjusted bigtime.

King D. said...

You need to adjust your blog clock. You have it set on Pacific time.

repoman said...

King:

Yes, you are at least 25% of my readership!

Meanwhile, Iv'e heard about your boss...cruel, but fair.

repoman said...

King:

By the way, I have no idea where to make the clock adjustment.

If you know, please advise.

King D. said...

Cruel? Well you should have seen his reaction the time I asked to throw one more lump of coal on the fire.

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