As has been seen in so many of our urban centers, the people who have made it their jobs to halt an economic decline are themselves the ones that are the major cause of that decline. If you look at all the cities in the country that are the biggest economic basket-cases, liberals have been in charge of them for 50 years or more. If micromanaging the economy (as liberals love to do) really worked, Cleveland, an economic planner’s paradise, would look like the Emerald City instead of like this:
Except in cases of an area being the victim of a major economic shift, such as what the change to petroleum from whale oil did to whaling towns like New Bedford, Mass, poverty and economic decline is usually the result of government busybodies thinking they are smart enough to run the economy and dictate what people must and must not do with their own property.
I really don’t think that too many people contemplating opening a business in Belmar are going to be very excited about being forced to participate in the SID’s socio-economic planning experiment. The very nature of entrepreneurs is that they want to do their own thing. They don’t want to be told to pay for their nieghbor’s new awning, they don’t want to be told to pay for bike racks and benches on the other side of town, they don’t want to be told by a bunch of self-appointed know-it-alls how to “shine” and they don’t want to be told that they are “culture bound in practices that sustain a decline” and need to be part of someone else’s “vision” of some new culture. Government is supposed to reflect our culture, not impose it.
I’ve heard some grumbling about some of the expenses in the SID’s budget, things like the high management costs woven into several parts parts of it and the large amount to be spent on web development. And it’s true that if it were run more efficiently it might be able to do more. But if I owned a business in town I’m not sure I would want it to do more. I’m of similar mind to the late Will Rogers, who said: “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.”
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