Time has come to shrink local government
Chances are, if you haven’t been living in a bubble your entire life, you’ve found yourself on one side, or the other, of “the Equation of Theft.” Maybe you’ve stolen something, or maybe something was stolen from you. It isn’t pleasant, but “stuff” happens. Greed, or we can get all biblical and say “coveting” is just an element of human nature.
There are all these factors that aggravate, or mitigate, the seriousness of stealing. To my way of thinking, I conclude that “murder” is the most extreme version of theft. The murderer (or thief) is stealing the life away from the victim. Since we can’t undo death, there can never be full or even partial restitution.
“According to John Lucas,” (with apologies to Mr. Hoffman, for “stealing” his tag line), that’s about as serious as you can get. If you murder someone, you’ve stolen all the time your victim had remaining in their life. With that, you’ve stolen all the stuff they would have done during that time. You’ve also stolen all of the stuff other people would have experienced from their exposure to your victim, had you not murdered them.
Now that’s a pretty big deal!
Right now, I’m attempting to steal a few moments of your time. “Old habits are just so hard to break.” At the max, it might take you five minutes to read what I’m writing. It might take you a few more minutes to think about it, if you’ re so inclined. OK, I’ll “cop (plead guilty)” to stealing ten minutes of your time. I hope the district attorney takes that into consideration when recommending an appropriate punishment for my theft.
Ah, but on the “real side,” I’m giving you considerably more than the ten minutes I’m taking away. You just have to be smart enough to recognize what you’re looking at. Let me clue you into something. Everybody that writes a piece on an Editorial page is trying to steal some of your time. With the expansion of the Herald-Standard into the Mon Valley, a couple of guys from there decided they were up for the game. Some of us look at this version of the theft of your time as a game. I most certainly do.
There’s no difference in what we’re doing. The difference is in how we’re doing it. We have a bevy of Leftist Progressives Democrats, a few Status Quo Conservative Republicans and one guy who subscribes to “Realpolitik.” I’m that “one guy!”
Yes, I’m venomous in what I write. “I call ’em like I see ’em.” If that’s a bad thing, I’m guilty. You have to understand, I believe it’s a “real” thing. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. Unlike other columnists, I can’t think of a good enough excuse for being wrong.
Recently, during the last election, the possibility of localized systemic theft became an issue worth considering. One Republican candidate did her homework and pointed out that our population justifies that we downgrade Fayette County from a “Forth Class county” to a “Fifth Class county.” That could bring about the consolidation of a couple Row Offices.
With a population of around 134,000, we don’t meet the benchmark of 145,000 to remain a Fourth Class county. We don’t need all these redundant row offices. They duplicate themselves. The Recorder of Deeds office and the Recorder of Wills office should be combined. She went on to say the Prothonotary’s office and Clerk of Courts office should be combined.
Do you know what a “prothonotary” is?
That upset some Democrat politicians and bureaucrats. Imagine that! They paid for political ads supporting her opposition. It’s kind of like this: if you have someone abusing our welfare system, getting benefits for six minor children when in reality they only have four, they’re “playing” the system and ripping us taxpayers off. We’re paying taxes to help support some children that don’t exist.
I’ve heard arguments that if we downgrade Fayette County from a Fourth Class county to a Fifth Class county, our CYS agency will get less funding from the Commonwealth. We can’t do that. Why? If we don’t, we’re guilty of perpetrating a fraud to commit theft against all of us that pay taxes. Maybe the matrix they use to determine funding should be changed. I support such a review, but that doesn’t justify theft.
How often do we read in this newspaper that this person or that person was charged with Welfare Fraud? Yet Fayette County is doing essentially the very same thing. Our elected officials are perpetrating a fraud, remaining a Fourth Class county to take tax dollars from the
Commonwealth (taxpayers) when in reality we’re a Fifth Class county and not entitled to them. CYS would lose funding to deal with our “phantom” citizenry? In the Nov. 10th help wanted ads, Fayette County’s CYS is hiring someone for a Caseworker 1 Position. Why? Maybe to deal with an additional population of 11,000 that doesn’t exist?
Only my Republican Representative (Ryan Warner) endorsed this “renegade” candidate. Where was the rest of Fayette County’s Republican Party? Why didn’t they pull out the stops and really push for smaller government? I’m not talkin’ about rhetorical “theoretical” smaller government. I’m talkin’ about implementing “practical” smaller government? Isn’t that what the Republican Party is all about?
“There are two things I don’t like about some people. The TWO things are their face!”
John Lucas is a resident of Vanderbilt.