By M. Elaine Hocker
It's budget-cutting time in the great ghetto of Saratoga. Sob, sob, sob. How can this poverty-driven area possibly reduce its operating costs? Sob. Forgive me, but I find the whole budget crisis laughable because of the utter nonsense surrounding the situation.
I have witnessed Saratoga's operational budget increase from the thousand-dollar category to the million-dollar category. Presumably, those of us who have had the privilege of paying higher and higher taxes every year should have, at some point, witnessed some benefit from these increased taxes. In fact, all the longtime residents I am associated with, at all income levels, indicate quite the opposite is true. The "quality of life" for longtime residents is perceived as remaining the same or as deteriorating. Forty years ago, our streets were well maintained, and we had confidence in our fire department, schools and police services. We also were not terribly unhappy with the tax dollars required to pay for these services.
Anytime the tax situation is brought up, it is the practice of city, county and state governments to wail that their inefficiencies are based on a lack of tax dollars, which they then attribute to, horror of horrors, the implementation of Prop. 13.
When Prop. 13 passed, the state budget was $15.7 billion. Eighteen years later, in 1996, the state budget exceeded $62 billion, allowing per-capita spending to far outstrip inflation growth. The simple answer is that it isn't we are not taxed enough; it's simply we spend too much.
How well has Saratoga managed its budget over the years? There are still a few people around who believe that any tax-supported entity should operate on the same cost-effective basis as a private business. Of course, if they did, your taxes would be drastically reduced overnight. Consider one minor item in the Saratoga budget--the $2 million "protective services" cost of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department. How does a good budget analyst approach this cost? How has the cost of this service increased over the years? What benefits have been derived from these increased costs? Can the increased cost be justified by equivalent benefits derived from this service? Who is evaluating the effectiveness of this service? Can this evaluation provide an objective analysis of services rendered? The probability that all of the foregoing questions have been considered each time this budget item has been approved is probably subzero.
Can the increased cost of government be blamed solely on those we elect to office? Sorry, but your elected representatives only do what they think will get them re-elected. This means there are too many of us who do not view government as a watchdog, but rather as a sacred cow to be milked.
Regarding our little Saratoga budget, please classify me as belonging to the hard-hearted, uncompassionate species who believes smaller government is better. That means I do not believe the function of government should be to entertain me, baby-sit or raise my children, provide me with recreational facilities, tell me how to landscape my property (or violate my private property rights by telling me I cannot cut a dead tree down), or create a hierarchy of senseless rules and regulations to beautify and protect my life.
In other words, I believe that the proper function of government is to do for the people those things that have to be done but cannot be done by individuals and that the most effective government is government closest to the people. Also, individual rights are meaningless if these rights can be destroyed through excessive taxation, inflation and/or government waste.
M. Elaine Hocker is a 40-year resident of Saratoga.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, February 12, 1997.
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