When I was working, I was a public employee for an affluent county that is outside of NYC. We had, for two terms, a fiscally conservative County Executive. When he was elected, he ran on a platform of ‘no tax increases.” Many people thought that’s wonderful, “more money in our pockets! We love that!”
Since public employees’ salaries go up (usually), and expenses generally increase due to inflation, that meant that other things had to be cut. What would be cut? First, the parks department took big cuts to the point where some parks had to be closed due to lack of maintenance. A beautiful county, an affluent county, but parks were closed. One of the public pools had to be closed due to lack of maintenance. Who uses public pools? Not the affluent (the County Exec’s friends), because they probably have their own pool or belong to country clubs so they’re not using public pools. Who suffered? The poor and the middle class. Kids in camp that would use the public pool, now they couldn’t. When something like a public pool remains closed for ten years or so, it takes a lot of money to get it updated and up and running once things are back up, due to snow and frost sinking into the concrete and ruining things, wooden structures like the ticket booths rotting away, plumbing for the pool rotting, all kinds of fun. The golf courses stayed open. Why? Who uses them? Middle class and upper middle class – meaning the County Executive’s friends and business cronies. Hmmmm.
That’s just one example. I could go on.
What’s another example? He cut bus lines. Who takes the bus? Not his affluent friends.
Hmmmm. People got upset. Commuters to NYC got upset. Once elected, it’s hard to stop the whims of a politician especially when he has the backing of his other Republican friends to back him on votes for cuts.
Fiscally conservative is not always best. Being prudent is great, not being a spendthrift is great, but money needs to be spent with a realization that costs do increase – it’s inevitable.