Tapscott's Copy Desk - Now that your taxes are filed, think about this

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Now that your taxes are filed, think about this

POSTED April 23, 4:37 PM

Just imagine that the biggest part of the taxes you pay isn't to Uncle Sam in far-away Washington, but rather to your local community, the one controlled by an elected Mayor and a town council. And you know every one of these people because they are friends, neighbors, acquaintances from work or familiar faces from around the town.

And they know you, too, and not just because when you have a problem with something they are doing, or not doing, you know where to find them. And you do. Sometimes they agree with you and sometimes they don't, but they know who you are and like to keep you happy because your taxes pay their salaries.

Sound like an impossible dream? Well, not so long ago, that was the daily reality for most Americans. Donald Devine, vice president of the American Conservative Union and editor of its Battle Line publication, offers this description of the way we were:

"As recently as 1900, local government raised twice the revenue as the national government and six times as much as state governments. Then progressivism set out to eliminate small government diversity. From using the multi-service county rather than creating additional municipalities, to municipal consolidation reforms (creating one large city from scores of towns), to the encouragement of annexation of nearby unincorporated land, to simply making it difficult to create new municipalities, progressive reforms smothered new local governments.

"Today there are hardly more municipalities, townships and towns than there were at the turn of the last century, even with the incredible growth of population. For school districts, it is even worse. While there were 127, 000 independent school districts as late as the 1930s, now there are only 14,000."

Devine's comment comes in the midst of his article in the latest edition of Battle Line on New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's latest proposal - or maybe thinly veiled threat would be a more accurate descriptor - to consolidate his state's many small townships into larger, "more efficient units" that are better able to take advantage of economies of scale."

Devine's analysis of why local government works better and thus has been a primary target of liberals , socialists and progressives for many decades is well worth reading and copying to friends and neighbors. One observation I offer in this regard is the possibility that the Internet's power of linking people will be a factor in reinvigorating decentralization of power and authority in this country.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Back in my pre-journalism days, I worked for Devine when he was President Ronald Reagan's Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal civil service workforce. I was Assistant Director for Public Affairs. That was my last job (November 82 - June 85) before I joined the reporting staff of The Washington Times and embarked on my career as a journalist.

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