Change ...

One of the things I’ve noticed about urban problems is the immediate tendency to blame someone or some individual group for them. While study sometimes proves this to be justified, it’s not always true. Sometimes things just happen and we have to act wisely. I think that some of us who matured in the turbulent 1960s when we suffered the indignity of being uprooted from whatever life we were leading and then thrust into a war halfway around the globe, a war that no one understands, or can justify, even today. Worse still, we are blamed for it.

We understand that sometimes stuff just happen. Survivors accept and adjust. Losers bitch and moan. But there are those who must suffer.

Some cities, including Little Rock, are now facing revenue shortfalls. Someone has to accept the blame. Who? Is it the previous Mayor who might have pursued policies that we didn’t like?

Is it a board member who once torpedoed a wise policy or program?

Is it the present mayor who should have soared into office on a wave of exuberant economic enthusiasm?

Is it the policy-makers of past years who worked hard to make the regressive and unreliable sales tax the basic revenue source for Arkansas municipalities?

Is it the local citizen who, having been denied learning how government works, during high school, no longer comprehends the need for municipal services and the cost thereof?

Is it the citizen who supports politicians from a party that starts wars on credit and requires its members to sign pledges never to increase public revenues, no matter what the need?

Is it the citizen who orders goods on-line for the convenience, then chortles about not paying sales tax on the goods as a delivery truck, protected by municipal fire and police, ambles along streets maintained by the city, to deliver those goods to homes whose mortgages are protected by public largess?

Is it the cult member who activates against birth control while unwanted children wander our streets with career options seemingly limited to pro sports or criminal enterprise?

Today’s social media drippings are rich with answers. Everyone has one and they are all true. So far though, no one has mentioned simply raising taxes to meet the demands of our brave new world.

Heck, I know only one thing: two plus two equals four. Always has. Always will. As my old college pal, John Keats would put it, “That is all you know on earth, and all you need to know"