From “A Horde of Lilliputian Governments,” by Michael Lind, published in [url=]The New Leader (now defunct) May 5, 1997:
Anybody have any reason to think otherwise?
I’ve always thought that. I’m puzzled by the ‘local is better’ crowd.
We certainly have plenty examples of local municipalities being corrupt. In Gould, Arkansas the town council passed a law banning a particular group from talking with the mayor and then took it a step further by making it illegal for any group to form with the purpose of talking about the town without first getting permission from the town council. We’ve all heard of corrupt city government officials stealing money, small town police forces which exist for the sole purpose of fleecing drivers by issuing speeding tickets and I’m sure we can all find more stories about city/county/state corruption. Part of the reason we can find more stories is because there are way more governments than the Feds here in the United States.
How many different governments do we have in the United States? According to Wikipedia we have the following. (Honestly, it’s hard finding a straight answer on how many city/town governments the U.S. has.)
Federal: 1
State: 50
County: 3,034
Municipal: 19,429
Township: 16,504
School District: 13,506
I’m not sure what is meant by a local government being inefficient. A lot of people seem to miss that it is the local government which makes the most decisions which you feel on a daily basis. Everything from where to put new roads to how schools should be funded are decided on a local basis. It makes more sense for a lot of those decisions to be made on a local level. What does a guy from Austin, Texas know about repairing roads in New York City?
I’m more interested in data than “reason”. Got any?
Yes. At every level of government there’s some corruption. The reason why many people would prefer to have decisions made at local levels is that there’s more possibility of the people exercising control over small governments than big ones. In my county there are about 10,000 votes cast in a typical election. That means that if I and a few hundred of my fellows in this county wish to effect some sort of change in the county government, we have a chance of doing so. On the other hand, the same group of people would have no chance at all of effecting some sort of change in Congress.
Based on anecdote I’d agree smaller government officers are more generally corrupt. But I too wouldn’t mind seeing some factual citations to back that up, because we all know that anecdote isn’t evidence.
Additionally, the reason people like local government over centralized government is it allows local concerns to be heard by people who are directly accountable by local voters. If all county and municipal officers were say, appointed by the governor of the state, then a lot of voters would feel they didn’t get to have any real say on the government officials who had the most immediate and direct effect on their day to day lives. Something that always shocks me is how passionate people get about national political issues while ignoring local ones, a lot of the stuff that really impacts your day to day life is actually handled by local government, but it’s “un-sexy” stuff like zoning issues, property tax levies, and etc. But these things can have a real material impact on you on a day to day basis whereas a lot of Federal issues don’t.
Also, while I like local government I’ve always been opposed to a few offices being elected.
I don’t think County Sheriffs anywhere should be an elected position, they should be appointed by county elected government from the ranks of the professional police force. No judges should be elected, ever. Nor should magistrates or prosecutors.
I have no data but Lind’s subjective anecdotal impressions quoted in the OP. Don’t know if anyone has ever done an actual study on this.
Really? At least with elected judges, you can remove bad ones. Here in MA, judges are appointed. Which means that 90% are failed politicians. They serve till they die (in many cases), and a senile judge is a big problem. The sheriffs are a special problem-many are very corrupt. The late sheriff of Middlesex County (James DePaolo) committed suicide after an investigation of his activities revealed that he sold jobs in his office, and hosted “parties”-where deputies and office employees were “urged” to “make contributions”. DiPaolo was also diverting Federal Grant money into his friends pockets-a real standup guy!
A counterexample: Fairfax County, Virginia. Little-to-no corruption, efficient and well-run government for just over a million people with very few layers. In my native New Jersey the same population would be covered by a county or three, and dozens of “cities”, townships, boroughs, etc. We also have one of the best school districts in the US. Taxes are high, but things are run well.
So you basically live in Canada.
But it also means a hundred or so nut cases can effect change as well. Maybe they think WiFi causes cancer and decide to ban it within city limits, or compel everyone to carry a gun, or ban pet stores. It took the Supreme Court and President calling out the National Guard just to force local government to let black kids walk to school in peace.
You also have a wealthy and highly-educated population. That helps.
Well, for things like not letting blacks go to school that is a good example as to where the Federal government needs to come in to trump local government–and it did. That’s not really an argument to toss all local governments on the dust bin of history and go to a system in which a few powerful politicians appoint 99% of the rest of the offices in the whole country.
Dumb regulations like the San Francisco pet store ban or the Georgia(?) compulsory gun law are examples of unwise legislation (and in the compulsory gun carry probably unenforceable), the job of a citizenry is to decide if such unwise legislation should result in politicians being thrown out of office. It doesn’t make me think those politicians should have been appointed instead.
Naw, we still pay out the wazoo for health care.
Yes it does, quite a bit. Although there’s a chicken-and-egg problem, and Fairfax County has its issues with poverty, gangs, etc. And why is Fairfax County so much better run than some neighboring jurisdictions, even with similar populations? I suspect several dissertations can be written on that topic.
True enough. Our way of government is premised on the belief that, all things considered, it’s better when government is responsive to the people. Sometimes the people will get hysterical and push through stupid laws, but on the whole it’s still better when they have power.
Another point about lower levels of government is that it’s easier to get away from them when they make bad decisions. If your city government runs a 12-billion-dollar debt, you can move to the suburbs. If your state creates a 500-billion-dollar shortfall, you can move to a different state, but that’s probably going to be a lot more inconvenient. If the federal government runs up a debt of 15.7 billion dollars, the only way to get away from it is to leave the country, which is very expensive and difficult.
Well, I know that Greensboro, NC, which I grew up near and lived next door to for many years, has a lot of educated transplants. However, these transplants do not participate in local government, which means that the perhaps less-educated, less-racially-sensitive, and perhaps less-competent local good-ol’-boys runs things by default.
I think the reason the transplants don’t participate is because they figure they’ll be transferred by their companies in a few years anyway, or they’ll take another job in another city when they get downsized, etc… I am contrasting that with DC, in which people are more likely to stay put.
Are the other counties around Fairfax run by the local good-ol’-boys?
If not, I have no idea why Fairfax is run better, other than pure luck.
Since we are on anecdotes, I have seen corruption at every level. The national stuff is more sophisticated, but the corruption is there nonetheless. Its like sales guys - a rep selling tanks to the Army is the same type of guy selling used cars in hicksville. They are both buying dinners, glossing over problems, and doing whatever it takes to close the deal. One might have a better suit, but if you distill them down to their essence - they are the same.
I also like the ability to make a difference locally with City Council and School Board members in my contacts.
The weird thing is that other parts of Arkansas (rural areas) integrated before Brown vs. the Board of Education without any of the same problems experienced in Little Rock.