Subtitled: Mundane Political Stupidity I Must Share.
I can only assume the phrase, ‘Governement of the people, for the people and by the people’ is not exclusively American ideal. You want more services than you’re willing to pay for, ‘keine Furcht!’ say the local politicians in Blumberg, Germany. (Too bad they don’t spell it Bloomberg or this might not be an issue). There are some lines in the story that just jump out and tickle my irony bone; I can only hope something got fubar’ed in the translation.
The story doesn’t mention if the local politicos are christain democrats, social democrats or greens, but with 2 treatment plants and no money to pay for them, I can assume it’s the latter. It’s not that big a deal I suppose, their 26-million plus shortfall pales in comparison to Berlin’s 20+ billion problem.
Too bad their community is so far inland that the chances of receiving future Mediteranean tsunami relief is slim. If Blumberg’s dreams of a big payout are dashed, they can either hope for an Alpen volcano - or tell the people, ‘you get what you pay for’ and ‘you get who you vote for’.
Perhaps it doesn’t match all stereotypes, that’s the composition of the local council:
19 Christian Democrats
5 “Free List” of quasi-independents
4 Social Democrats
3 Free Democrats (libertarian, mostly leaning towards the conservative side in recent decades)
plus the independent mayor
Not a single green among them, not even in the opposition. That’s not really surprising because rural Baden-Württemberg traditionally is a conservative stronghold.