...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Wednesday, May 21, 2003
      ( 9:14 AM )
 
Multnomah County Makes History

I'm proud to live here for the first time in a while. Not only did more voters turn out for our special election yesterday than ever have before, but we here in Multnomah County (that's the greater Portland area) voted for a first-of-its-kind tax increase on ourselves in order to save our schools, our elderly and infirm, along with the policing and justice systems of our county. The Oregon state legislators refuse to make the tough decisions and continue to wallow in the sink hole that has become our state's economy, social services, education and quality of life. But we didn't just stand there and take it, we decided to make our own community better. We showed that actually, even though we're all struggling because of the economy right now, we're willing to give a small percentage of our income to keep our children's futures in tact, to ensure the care of the elderly and infirm, and to actually put criminals in jail instead of giving them tickets and asking them not to burglarize or assault anyone again.

Lots of people think it's only a short term answer, a bandaid on cancer...and it is. But it's a short term answer that we desperately needed. There is only so long we can continue to not do SOMETHING to help our society survive. The cure to the cancer will take a while, and in the meantime, our children need to be able to go to school, our elderly need to have care. While I can understand tax resisters to a point (I certainly wish I could say where my tax dollars go instead of having them go to the things George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld want), I don't understand how people can choose "no taxes" over the welfare of their own society and community. The entire point of having government to tie a community together is to put revenue into that government and the government uses that to provide infrastructure and programs to make our community work. At least that's how it's supposed to work. It's our responsibility as citizens to take action into our own hands when the government is misusing the revenue we give it, and also when it's not getting the revenue it needs.

We the People. That's us. We really can choose to change the way our government works for us. But we have to actually do something, take action. If we just sit and watch things crumble around us and are unwilling to be part of the answer, to give even a tiny fraction of what we have to make the whole of our community better, then we are no better than the government that cheats us. We get the government we ask for. It's true of our local government, it's true of our federal government. In the end, the responsibility lies with us. I'm glad my own community took that responsibility seriously yesterday. Because now that means that there is just a little more hope for tomorrow. And a little hope is a big thing in times like these.

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