Stimulus: Thanks but no thanks

Editor's Note: This essay originally appeared as an editorial in the Feb. 15 edition of The Town Meeting.

By Brian Keilen

There’s a particular feeling in the air for most governmental bodies: It’s budget time. The trillions more dollars, much larger land area, and confusing speeches infused with “don’t mess with Texas” pizzazz aside, I find the differences between our national budget and our village budget striking.

“Fiscal responsibility” and “justifying to the taxpayers” are two phrases you aren’t likely to hear outside of campaign punch lines in Washington. Unless someone can explain to me the reason we just passed a “stimulus package” amid rising national debt and a proposed budget in the trillions. Thanks for the cash, Uncle Sam, but I think you’ve got some financial problems of your own.

I guess that I didn’t realize when JFK said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” he meant going out and buying stuff. If that’s the case, then the Elk Rapids Village Council should have no problem deciding whether or not to buy a new police SUV and new trucks for the DPW and waste water plant: The answer is an obvious yes. It’s their American duty.

Forget the fact that the money for those vehicles comes from Michigan taxpayers who felt the effects of the current recession long before the rest of the country. Yet, somehow, phrases such as “justifying to the taxpayers” were mentioned at the Feb. 4 Village Council meeting. What brashness they displayed by questioning if they should buy things when Congress, and even the President himself, is telling them it is their patriotic duty to spend, spend, spend. The Village doesn’t even have a war (that eats up a good chunk of those trillions in the budget) to fight.

I’m sure that the people won’t be so ungrateful and will go out right away and spend their check (although a recent poll indicates only 19 percent said they would). Michigan residents definitely won’t use it to pay their catastrophically high heating bills and other bills they have been struggling to pay during this (key word) recession (although, in the same poll, 45 percent said they would).

Basically, Washington is giving us some of our money back and making us feel guilty by not spending it, then turning around and spending more of our money that they don’t have. That’s like the village giving a tax rebate and then saying, “Hmmm, the police department wants a new SUV, how about three!” Doesn’t make much sense to me.

It seems as though they could have done a little more than put the weight of reviving the economy on our shoulders with $600 to $1,200 checks. Maybe a reduction in war spending or perhaps investment in interests in this country would help. Heck, even though it would aide in increasing our out of control national debt, even lowering taxes would provide a more long term solution.

I hope lawmakers don’t think they’re going to hand us this money and we’re going to go on our merry way and I hope we don’t let them. Simply handing out money should not be an excuse for doing the job of balancing the budget, controlling the national debt and fixing the economy.

So, when it comes to the so-called “stimulus,” I say nice gesture, but you can do better.

Brian Keilen is the editor of The Town Meeting, a weekly newspaper in Elk Rapids, Michigan.