The St. Louis County Board of Commissioners may soon be forced to vote on increasing its full-time government employee complement, initially estimated upwards of 34 employees with a correlating cost increase to local taxpayers. The other of Minnesota’s 87 counties will be doing more or less the same, dependent on their size. These changes were necessitated not because of some deliberative decision of local, elected leaders closest to the people. Rather, they are caused by decisions made in far-off Washington, D.C. Present changes are driven by the newly created federal Affordable Care Act (pejoratively called Obamacare). Citizens of Minnesota and other states should reflect deeply on how we ever allowed ourselves to get into such a heavy-handed, paternalistic state of affairs where Washington frequently imposes myriad programs upon the states.

Ponder this. Washington takes our local dollars. Then Washington takes a middle-man cut, giving us back a percentage of our local dollars. We’re then told by Washington in what manner we should spend our returned dollars. Adding insult from this paternalistic system, we are penalized or sanctioned if we don’t spend our dollars (mind again these were our dollars to start) as Washington sees fit. Within this system we find such amusing language as match, whereby local government entities match federal dollars, as if those federal dollars actually originated from Washington. Is it any wonder with such an upside-down, disconnected system that we have allowed there exists a continued fiscal cliff, sequestration crisis of Washington?

The answer to America’s fiscal malaise lies not in a D.C. beltway solution but rather local solutions within each of the 50 states. It has been correctly observed that local government is the laboratory of democracy. Within Minnesota and among fellow county commissioners, one frequently hears the slogan: “Local government works.” It does. It works because by and large it far more efficiently allocates taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars to essential services than a distant federal government. Local government works because its elected leaders are closest to the watchful oversight of their bosses — the people. The answer to solving the budget mess in Washington and efficiently using public resources to address critical issues, lies in returning to local government. This is done by taking the power away from the Washington beltway and returning it to local government. It starts with sending elected leaders to Washington who have the discipline and humility to relinquish federal power back to the local level.

 

Chris Dahlberg
commissioner
St. Louis County
Duluth